October 15, 2006 - Rider 3 Niagara 1
October 15, 2006
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
College Volleyball
Rider University 3, Niagara University 1
LAWRENCEVILLE—For the first 20 minutes, it looked like Rider was stuck in a blizzard after Niagara took an eight point win in the opening game. The Broncs dug in and rallied to win three straight, defeating the Purple Eagles 3-1 in a Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference match on Sunday afternoon.
The Broncs defeated Niagara 22-30, 31-29, 30-24, 30-23.
“We’ve won the first game a lot this year and this was one of the few matches that we have started off slow,” said head coach Emily Ahlquist. “The change of schedule kind of threw us off a little bit with the extra day off and we had to push through. The positive is that we didn’t give up and kept battling.”
For Rider (7-11, 5-4 MAAC), sophomore Lacey Johnson (Aurora, Colo./Grandview) had a ‘double-double’ with 27 digs and 14 kills.
“Niagara came out fired up,” said Johnson who has three ‘double-double’ matches in a row and 10 this season. “We switched up our defense for the second game and even though we weren’t at the top of our game to start, we kept fighting through and got the win. We should have come out with more energy.”
Niagara (3-15, 1-10 MAAC) won the first game by eight and led game two 20-11 before Rider mounted the come back. Down 26-21, the Broncs went on a 10-3 run to close out the game with six of the points served by Johnson.
“I’ve always tried to lead by example,” Johnson added. “I’m not real vocal and since we are this young, I felt the need to step up my play and effort and that has allowed the players around me to play better. The more leadership we have overall, the better we are going to play.”
“Ten of our 13 players are underclassmen and you can’t always depend on the three upperclassmen,” said Ahlquist. “Everyone has to lead in their own way and Lacey is very consistent. As we have moved through the season, she has become more comfortable in her role.”
In the third game, Rider carried the momentum, jumping out to a 23-16 lead in the 30-24 win. In the fourth and deciding game, with the score tied at 17, Rider took the lead for good with freshman JoAnna Winter (Hamburg, Minn./Mayer Lutheran) serving seven straight points as the Broncs built a 25-17 lead enroute to the 30-23 win. The final game saw eight ties and four lead changes.
Winter had 50 assists and 16 digs with fellow first-year player Amy Jeary (Depew, N.Y./St. Mary’s) adding 22 digs. Jeary currently leads the conference averaging over six digs per game.
Junior Nastasja Avranovic (Philadelphia, Pa./Northeast) added 19 digs and senior Megan Smith (Webster, N.Y./Webster) had 17 kills.
“When you defeat a team once in a season, the second time around, the opposing team is going to come out fired up and Niagara did today,” Ahlquist added. “We beat them 3-2 on September 23rd and both matches were a battle. They had that much more incentive to try to beat us today.”
“In this conference, anything can happen,” Johnson added. “I’m looking forward to playing Canisius again and giving them a good fight.”
Rider hosts the Golden Griffs on Monday at 5:00pm in a match that was originally scheduled for Saturday and was postponed due to the snow storm in Western New York.
“I’m looking forward to see how we react and come out tomorrow against Canisius,” said Ahlquist. “They beat us 3-0 last month and we’ve improved a lot since that match and we can use tomorrow as a measuring stick for the rest of the conference schedule.”
-RU-
