MOON TOWNSHIP, Pa. – The RMU volleyball team came up victorious on Tuesday night as they downed Youngstown State in five sets at the UPMC Events Center.
With the win, the Colonials improve to 7-7, 2-1 while the Penguins dropped to 6-9, 0-3 on the season.
KEY SET MOMENTS
- The first set started out as a back and forth battle with both teams trading points until midway through the stanza. With the score tied at 11, RMU went on a 7-0 run thanks to four attack errors from the Penguins. Youngstown State had a staggering 13 attack errors in the set that gave the Colonials a distinct advantage, which led to a set win.
- RMU came out swinging aggressively in the second set as the home team had 15 kills in the stanza along with a match-high .483 hit percentage. Once again, the score was notched at 11 until the Colonials went on an impressive 15-6 run that left the Penguins on their heels. Jocelyn Jourdan, Tatum Otolski, and Jaaliyah Evans combined for seven kills on the set-clinching run.
- Going into the third set it was the eight attack errors from RMU that was the separator as Youngstown State took advantage of those miscues at the end of the set. The score was tied at 19 when Youngstown State jumped out to a 6-2 run with three of those points coming off of Colonial errors.
- Youngstown State had their best offensive set in the fourth stanza with a match-high 16 kills while RMU had their lowest number of kills in a set with nine. Five out of the last six points from the Penguins came off of kills and even though RMU kept the set close it was Youngstown State who pulled away late to push the match to a fifth set.
- The stats from the final set were almost identical for both squads but it proved to be the 8-2 run in the middle of the set that pushed RMU towards the finish line. Consecutive kills by Hillarie Adams and Natalie Stepanovich pushed the Colonial lead to 13-7, however Youngstown State responded with a 4-0 run to tighten the RMU lead. An attack error by YSU followed by a match-clinching kill from Stepanovich closed the book on the first conference matchup between these two teams.
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