SOUTH HADLEY, Mass. -- The Mount Holyoke College volleyball team took a 2-1 lead in its bid for an upset against the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, but the visiting Bears came back to defeat the Lyons 3-2 (20-25, 25-17, 22-25, 25-20, 15-9) on Tuesday night in Mildred S. Howard Gymnasium.
Coast Guard (16-7, 6-3 NEWMAC) won its third straight match and stayed in fourth place in the conference, while Mount Holyoke (9-13, 1-8 NEWMAC) remains in 11th place, with two NEWMAC matches remaining in the season. The top eight teams in the final standings will compete in the NEWMAC playoffs.
Coast Guard attacked at a .209 percentage for the match, including a .353 percentage in the fifth set. The Bears tallied 10 team blocks to Mount Holyoke's one, and had a 15-10 advantage in service aces.
Allie Wildsmith led Coast Guard with 21 kills against four errors on 47 attacks (.459), and Sophia Galdamez added 17 kills on 46 attempts (.261). Kaela France had a team-high 36 digs and Elizabeth Atkinson posted six blocks and six kills. Maeve Duffin had 43 assists for Coast Guard.
Mount Holyoke sophomore Madeline Barton (Brookfield, Wis.) tied her season-high with 21 kills to go with 12 digs, while junior captain Lucie Berclaz (Hull, Mass.) had a career-high 13 kills to go with 21 digs and seven aces in a massive performance. Sophomore Sadie Duffrin (Minneapolis, Minn.) had a career-high 46 assists and sophomore Amelia Ringor (West Lafayette, Ind.) had a match- and career-high 36 digs. First-year Kyra Staples (Chatham, Ill.) had 33 digs, also a career high. Sophomore Elle Rimando (Mililani, Hawaii) had 10 kills and only one attack error on 27 swings (.333).
Barton had six kills in the first set to help the Lyons take a 1-0 lead, punctuated with a kill by Rimando. Coast Guard turned the tables in the second set, raising its attack percentage from .054 to .290. Wildsmith had back-to-back kills for a 24-16 lead, and the Bears tied the match after a Lyons service error.
The third set featured nine tie scores and four lead changes. Coast Guard began to pull away with an 18-12 lead, but Mount Holyoke stormed back to retake the lead for good at 22-21, using two kills and two aces by Berclaz. A kill by Barton and an ace by Duffrin clinched the set and a 2-1 lead for Mount Holyoke. Barton had six kills in the set, while Berclaz and Rimando had four apiece.
Coast Guard began its comeback right away in the fourth set, scoring the first two points on the way to a 5-1 lead and a Mount Holyoke timeout. The Lyons closed within a point at 16-15 and 17-16, using three kills by Barton in a 4-1 run. But a kill by Carlee Lingle began a 6-0 run for Coast Guard for a 23-16 lead, and a Wildsmith kill tied the match at 2-2.
Mount Holyoke opened the decisive fifth set with an ace by Berclaz, but a Wildsmith kill for the sideout began a run of seven consecutive points for Coast Guard, including three aces by Carmen Zipf, for a 7-1 lead. Coast Guard led 14-5, but Mount Holyoke didn't give up easily, going on a five-point streak before Elizabeth Atkinson's kill ended the match.
Mount Holyoke hosts Nichols College and Fitchburg State in a tri-match this Saturday, with the Lyons facing Nichols at 11am and Fitchburg at 3pm.