The Seton Hall volleyball team continued their winning ways Wednesday evening by defeating the Fordham Rams by a score of 3-1 (25-18, 25-13, 21-25, 25-18). The win inproves the Hall's record to 11-6 while the Rams drop to 3-11.
The Pirates won the match despite head coach Kris Zeiter's decision to rest seniors Meghan Matusiak and Krissy Wrobel. Matusiak leads the team with 211 kills on the season.
Seton Hall has now won four straight matches, including eight of their last nine.
In the first set, both teams traded points resulting in five lead changes. It was sophomore Simona Sekulova who gave the Pirates the 7-6 lead after the shaky start, a lead which they did not lose as they finished the set on top, 25-18.
The second set went back-and-forth for the first 10 points before the Pirates rattled off six straight points to take a 15-7 lead. Freshman Shelbey Manthorpe closed out set two with the kill, giving the Hall the 25-18 set victory and a 2-0 match lead.
Fordham came back in the third set as they kept the score tied for most of the set. This time it was Seton Hall's errors that brought them down as Olivia Trudeau had an errant service and Hannah Hugeback recorded an attack error in back-to-back possessions, allowing the Rams to take the third set by a score of 25-21.
The Pirates went down 2-0 in the final set but never looked back, taking an eight point lead and control of the match. After a seven point spree gave the Hall a 12-4 advantage, Fordham could not recover. A block from Manthorpe finished the Rams and gave Seton Hall their fourth win in as many matches.
According to Zeiter, the team played an incredibly balanced match.
"I was pretty happy overall," he said. "We have been talking about being a lot more balanced in our attack and we were able to do that tonight, spread the ball around a lot."
Five Pirates recorded five or more kills in the match, including freshman Stacey Manthorpe's game high 12 kills. She also added 17 digs and two assists. Shelbey Manthorpe led all players with 36 assists and contributed six kills.
For the Rams, senior Brittany Daulton led the way with 10 kills and 11 digs while junior Randy Ewing added nine kills of her own.
Zeiter praised his team for their determination and noted how confident they were in their ability.
"This is a focused group of girls I have," he said. "Every day in practice I see how focused and driven they are. They have a goal and they push themselves to accomplish it."
The Hall continues Big East play this weekend when they head down to South Florida.
"[USF] is very athletic," Zeiter said. "They're better defensively and they have great ball control, so it should be a tough matchup as usual."
The match against USF is set for Sunday, Sept. 2 at 7 p.m.
John Lopiano can be reached at john.lopiano@student.shu.edu.
