After winning their last two matches of the Colgate Ellis Rowland Memorial Tournament, the West Virginia volleyball team dropped their record to 4-6 Thursday morning in their first home match of the season against the Old Dominion Monarchs.
The match was the first of the Mountaineer Invitational, which will see West Virginia playing three matches over the course of Thursday and Friday.
The Mountaineers showed a lot of power and energy from the start of the first set, resulting in a mix of success and errors. This play allowed the Monarchs to start the set leading 10-5, and they carried this momentum throughout the set, forcing WVU coach Reed Sunahara to call his first timeout at 21-14.
The Monarchs, led by Italian junior Alice Munari’s four kills on six attacks as an OH, held just one attack error and one service error to win the set 25-18. Freshman MB Maddy McGath shined for the Mountaineers with seven kills in the set, but the team’s messy play, headlined by four service errors and eight attack errors, kept them behind Old Dominion.
The teams opened the second set even with each other, with WVU holding a 10-8 lead early, but the Mountaineers began to pull ahead soon after, forcing an Old Dominion timeout down 13-9. This call from coach Fred Chao slowed WVU’s momentum, forcing Sunahara to call a timeout of his own as the Monarchs tied the set 14-14.
Despite the efforts of Hailey Green and the continued success of McGath, who tied her career high of 10 kills after the second set, West Virginia found themselves unable to clean up their errors. The team’s 11 attack errors compared to Old Dominion’s one allowed the 16-4 run after Chao’s timeout that won the Monarchs their second set 25-17. Sophomore Bailey Burgess shut down WVU defensively as a middle blocker throughout the set.
The Mountaineers built back momentum to start the third set, due in part to 6’4″ sophomore Lauren Bodily, who tallied three kills from the right side to start the set 5-1 for WVU. Old Dominion quickly brought things back together as they had all match, but the Monarchs finally showed unforced errors of their own to keep the Mountaineers ahead most of the set.
The Mountaineers made errors in untimely moments, though, such as the short serve by libero Camilla Covas followed by an out of bounds swing from Hailey Green that tied the set for Old Dominion 20-20. From there, the Monarchs pushed forward to win their final set 25-23, with a final kill from Myah Conway that was touched out of bounds by West Virginia to bring Old Dominion’s record to 6-5 on the season.
West Virginia will attempt to bounce back this evening against North Dakota State at 7 p.m. for their second match of the tournament.
