The St. Lawrence Saints volleyball team ended their Friday night SLU Triad at the Burkman Gymnasium with an undefeated record of 2-0, rattling off a pair of four-set victories over Bard and SUNY Canton respectively.
Both games unfolded in the same fashion – with the Saints taking the first set of both matches, then giving up the second before finishing off their opponents with back-to-back set victories.
The match against SUNY Canton saw the Saints hit some milestone statistics. The Saints had a season-high 17 service aces, with over half of those coming from
Maggie Layman. Her nine service aces is tied for the second most in a match in program history.
The wins improve St. Lawrence to 4-6 on the season, and give them a win in their first Liberty League contest of the year (vs. Bard) making their conference record 1-0.
"It wasn't our prettiest day of volleyball, but I'm proud of the team for persevering and grinding out two four-set victories," said
Shelly Roiger, the Saints' head coach. "It doesn't matter who you play, it's always great to get a win in the Liberty League.
Roiger gave Bard's defense credit for being so scrappy, and was pleased to be able to earn the victory despite being faced that that adversity.
"Canton always plays hard and they have some nice talent on their team," she said of their second opponents. "Our serving game was definitely the difference in that match and our ability to keep them out of system, especially late in the match, was the difference-maker."
Vivian Zymeck and
Araiza Acum-Santos led the way offensively for the Saints in both games, taking the top two spots in kills. Zymeck racked up a total of 15 in game one, then recorded nine against SUNY Canton. Acum-Santos had nine in game one and eight in the second.
The third game of the triad was between Bard and SUNY Canton, going the distance to five sets where Bard got a hard-fought 3-2 victory just after playing St. Lawrence 30 minutes prior.
The Saints now have a quick turnaround. They head into Family Weekend to host Union in under 24 hours, playing at 2 pm at Burkman Gymnasium in their second conference contest of the season.
