Brockport match | Buffalo State match | Updated stats
ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- Seniors Kelsey Milligan, who was named to the All-Tournament team, and Carmen Sapp each had 12 kills and junior Delaney Martin added a season-high 13 kills to lead the Nazareth College volleyball team to a 3-1 win over Buffalo State Saturday afternoon in the third match of the weekend for the Golden Flyers at the RIT Invitational Tournament.
Nazareth (15-9) dropped a 3-0 decision to SUNY Brockport (14-9) to start the day but rebounded after losing the first set to Buffalo State (3-20) to win the final three sets for the win over the Bengals.
Against Brockport, the Golden Flyers dropped a pair of close sets 25-23 and 25-23 before falling 25-16 in the final set. Milligan and Sapp led the offense with each recording eight kills and Milligan added four blocks. Sophomore Jessica Barry had 23 assists, eight digs and two service aces while fellow sophomore Savannah Bothner led the defense with eight digs.
Against Buffalo State, the Bengals scored the final four points of the first set to come from behind for the 25-23 opening set win. In the second set, the Golden Flyers broke open a close game with a six-point run midway through the set to take a 17-10 lead and then scored nine of the final 10 points to seal the victory and knot the match at 1-1.
In the third set, Nazareth jumped out to an early lead at 8-4 but the Bengals battle back to tie the score with four straight points. After regaining the serve with a Sapp kill, the Golden Flyers rattled off 13 of the next 16 points with freshman McKenzie Hart serving four points and senior Celia Cordero added six more points with her service run as Nazareth coasted to the win and the 2-1 edge in the match.
The Golden Flyers jumped out to another lead in the fourth set scoring 13 of the first 16 points. Buffalo State answered with five consecutive points but Nazareth maintained a comfortable lead until late in the set.
With a 20-14 lead late, Nazareth surrendered four straight points and then called time out to regroup and the teams traded points for the remainder of the set before Nazareth secured the 25-23 win with a kill by junior Melissa Newcomb.
Milligan and Sapp each recorded 12 kills and also posted attack percentages of .429 and .478 respectively. Martin added 13 kills and a .391 attack percentage. Barry added 40 assists to her total for the day and also served eight aces. Bothner added nine digs to lead the defense while juniors Donovan Enriquez and Danielle Synowski and Cordero combined for 19 digs and three aces for the Golden Flyers.
Nazareth returns to action Wednesday for a 7 pm midweek match at the University of Rochester before hosting Houghton and Sage for Empire 8 matches Saturday.
