FAIRFIELD, Connecticut – The Marist volleyball team came back from two sets down and punched its ticket to the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference semi-finals with a thrilling 3-2 win vs Rider on Friday night.

SUMMARY:

The first set opened with both teams trading points but it was the Broncs that took the early 9-5 lead. The Red Foxes battled back and tied things up at 11-11 off back-to-back kills by sophomore Megan Fergus and senior Kelsey Ediger. Rider answered winning eight of the next 12 points to take the 19-15 lead. Marist battled back and brought it to 23-20 but the Broncs closed out the set with a 25-21 victory.

In the second set, Rider jumped out to an early 7-3 lead, before the Red Foxes battled back and got within one at 11-10. The Broncs regained the four point lead at 19-15 and again Marist clawed back, this time to within two at 19-17. However, Rider found the momentum and closed out the set, winning six of the next 10 points to secure the 25-21 win.

With the momentum on their side, the Broncs took a 14-8 and 16-12 lead in the third set but the Red Foxes answered with six straight points, behind back-to-back-to-back kills by Ediger and a service ace by senior Sydney Rojek to go up 18-16. After an attacking error brought the score to 18-17 Marist, the Red Foxes reeled off another run, this time of four points to gain the 22-17 advantage and then closed out the set with the 25-20 victory on a service ace by junior Taylor van der Biezen.

The fourth set saw both teams trading points before Rider took a 9-6 lead early on. Five straight points by Marist swung the score to 11-9 in favor of the Red Foxes. The Broncs answered with a six of eight point streak to regain the lead at 15-13. With the score at 16-15 in favor of Rider, the Red Foxes won 10 of the next 17 points to secure the 25-21 victory and send the match to a deciding fifth set.

The first two points of the final set saw a points overturned on a Marist challenge and then a late double touch call by the referees on the Red Foxes. The Broncs edged out to the 5-3 lead early on but Marist answered with a three point run to regain the lead at 6-5. Both teams went back and forth with points before the Red Foxes used another three point run to take the 10-8. Rider trimmed the deficit to just one at 14-13 but Fergus closed out the victory with a monstrous kill to give Marist the 15-13 fifth set win and 3-2 match win.

KEY STATS:

• The Red Foxes had 72 kills to the Broncs' 53
• Marist had a .226 team hitting percentage with Rider finishing at .173
• The Red Foxes won 86 total points while the Broncs won 67
• Both teams finished with four aces and 10 blocks

GAME NOTES:

• For the second straight match, sophomore Nikki DeSerpa had a team and career high kills, this time with 24 kills on the night
• Marist had three players with 15+ kills (DeSerpa – 24, Fergus – 20 and Ediger – 16)
• Fergus' 20 kills tied a career high
• Ediger's 16 kills moved her into fifth in program history with 1,025 career kills

QUOTE:

"So excited and so proud of our players" said head coach Lauren Amundson. "It was such a display of effort, heart and mental toughness. I'm so confident in our team's ability to comeback from any situation and I'm glad that everybody got to see that tonight."

UP NEXT:

The Red Foxes have a quick turnaround as they are back in action vs the #1 Fairfield Stags in the MAAC semi-finals on Saturday, Nov 19^th at 2 PM.