SMITHFIELD, Rhode Island - The Marist volleyball team fell to Villanova 3-0 on Saturday night in game one of the Hampton Inn-Vitational. With the loss, the Red Foxes fall to 0-4 on the year, while the Wildcats improve to 4-1. 
 

SUMMARY

• Marist came out strong in set one, taking the first four points of the set. Villanova battled back, and would eventually take the lead away from the Red Foxes. However, trailing 22-18, Marist would go a 4-0 run to tie the set at 22. Sophomore Skylar Harrison started it with a kill, followed by two Wildcat attack errors, and it was finished with a service ace from sophomore Morgan Owens. Villanova would take two of the next three points, however, and win the first set 25-23.
• In set two, the Wildcats took four out of the first five points to go up 4-1. Trailing 11-6, the Red Foxes would go on a 5-0 run to tie the match at 11. Sophomores Madelyn Waumans, McKinley Fox, and Harrison contributed kills while Fox also had a service ace. After crawling out to a 17-14 lead, Villanova would go on a 5-0 run to stretch that lead to 22-14, and go on to win the set 25-17. 
• In set three, the Wildcats jumped out to an early 4-3 lead. The Red Foxes would respond by taking five out of the next seven points to re-take the lead, 8-6. The two teams went back-and-forth for a while, until the score was eventually evened up at 16. However, Villanova took full control of the match from that point, taking eight of the next 10 points, to take a 24-18 lead. Despite a late comeback attempt by the Red Foxes, the Wildcats would take the set 25-20 to complete the sweep.

 

STATS

• In the first set, senior Stephanie Stone had three kills on just three attempts, good for a 1.000 hit percentage in the set. Stone, along with sophomore Ashley Cruise, led Marist's offense in the match with seven kills each. Stone also had a team-high .600 hit percentage.
• Fox filled up the stat line, racking up 24 assists, eight digs, two kills, and a service ace throughout the match.
• Marist had 10 total blocks to Villanova's five. Harrison led the way for the Red Foxes with six block assists. 
• Marist tallied six service aces to Villanova's four. The Red Foxes also only had two service errors, compared to the Wildcats' five.

 

NOTES

• DeSerpa tallied three kills in the match, leaving her with just 15 kills separating her and Heather Vir for ninth place on Marist's all-time kills list. 
• Harrison's six total blocks were a career high, surpassing the five total blocks she had last season against Manhattan. 

 

UP NEXT

The Red Foxes are back in action at 10 a.m. on Saturday morning when they take on North Dakota in game two of the Hampton Inn-Vitational. They will close out the tournament later in the day against Bryant at 4 p.m.