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Box Score 2 ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - The 2016 season couldn't have started much better for the Eckerd volleyball team.
Hosting the annual Eckerd College Invitational, the Tritons took advantage of playing on their home floor on the way to a pair of Friday sweeps over UNC-Pembroke and the University of New Haven (Conn.) in the McArthur Center.
Eckerd (2-0) had no problem with UNC-Pembroke, cruising past the Braves by scores of 25-15, 25-10 and 25-18.
But the Tritons saved their best performance for the last match of the night. Or more specifically, the last set.
EC took a pair of tightly-contested sets from New Haven in the day's final match, fending off a late rally to take the first set , 26-24, and posting its own late rally for a 25-21 win in set two.
In the third set, Eckerd got hot and never cooled down.
The Tritons jumped out to a 6-2 lead before piecing together two six-point runs for a 19-4 advantage on the way to a dominating 25-8 set win to conclude the day.
"I think the third set was a good indication of our will to win bit more importantly, it showed we have the ability to sustain a high level of play which is a sign of maturity," said EC head coach
Michelle Piantadosi. "My favorite part was how much fun they had while accomplishing all of this. It was a great start to the season."
New Haven came back from a 23-19 deficit in the first set to tie things up at 24-24 before Eckerd put the set away by taking the next two points on kills by
Sarah Johnshoy and
Lauryn Nelson.   In the following set, EC mounted the comeback after falling behind 19-16. Five straight points behind the service of
JaQuayla Baker turned things around as the Tritons took nine of the final 11 points of the set.
In the opening match, the Braves were unable to pose much of a challenge to a crisp Eckerd squad that hit .383 in the contest.
One of the team's focuses for the new season was to employ a more balanced attack. They did, and it worked quite effectively.
Eckerd spread the ball around to five hitters, all of whom averaged over two kills per set in the two matches. Nelson and
Kali Boatwright led the way in the opener with 11 and 10 kills respectively, while
Katie Arnette paced the attack in the nightcap with 10 kills.Â
JaQuayla Baker and Johnshoy provided a combined 27 kills to balance out the offense.
The Tritons also had some success at the service line with 20 total aces on the day, off-setting 16 service errors.
Eckerd returns to the floor tomorrow to face Kentucky State at 3:00 PM followed by Oklahoma Baptist at 7:30 PM.
