Moon Township, Pa. - October 11, 2009 - The Robert Morris University Colonials faced their second five set match of the season and fell to the Central Connecticut State Blue Devils Sunday at the Charles L. Sewall Center. The loss drops the Colonials to 6-15 overall and 3-1 in league play, while the Blue Devils improve to 10-9 overall and 5-0 in the NEC.
The Colonials started off the match with the upper hand winning the first two sets by scores of 25-23 and 27-25. However, the Blue Devils returned to the court and stunned the Colonials in set three with a 25-20 win. They went onto win sets four and five by scores of 25-13 and 15-8.
Set one started with a put down by sophomore Hannah Veith (Columbus, Ohio / Worthington). The Blue Devils were able to side out, but RMU quickly got the ball back and went on a six point run with freshman Lindsey Monger (Rising Sun, Md. / Rising Sun) registering two kills in the process. CCSU libero Kaitlin Petrella brought the Blue Devils back into the match by tallying three service aces to bring the score to 10-7. The Colonials continued to maintain the lead until back to back attack errors by Robert Morris gave CCSU a 17-16 advantage. RMU was able to recover and went on to win 25-23.
The entirety of the second set remained close between the two squads. Freshman Amanda Craig (Houston, Texas / St. Agnes Academy) started things off rifling a shot through the CCSU block for the first point of the set. The two teams swapped points for next several plays. With the score tied at 12-12 Graham captured two straight kills, which was followed by a Craig kill and two Blue Devil errors to set the score at 16-13 in RMU's favor. The Blue Devils remained on the Colonials trail and were able to tie things up at 22-22. However, RMU did not let up and kills by Veith and Craig ended the set 27-25. Craig tallied 11 kills in set two alone.
Central started out on a 3-0 run in the third set, but the Colonials evened up the score after several Blue Devil errors. At 4-4 CCSU's Tori Vaughan tallied a kill, which started a four point run by the Blue Devils. They continued to lead for the remainder of play. The Colonials were able to bring the score within one at 19-20, but CCSU was able to pull ahead and earned the 25-20 win.
The Blue Devils tallied 12 kills to Robert Morris's three, which led them to a dominating 25-13 win to force a fifth set. Central Connecticut State carried its energy into the final set and earned a solid 15-8 win to take the match win.
A total of five players earned double-digit digs. Craig led the Colonials with 16 kills and added 11 digs for her second double-double of the season. Graham added 12 kills in the defeat and Alyssa Bennett (Ramona, Calif. / Ramona) led the match with 40 assists and added 14 digs. Corinne Moser (Meyersdale, Pa. / Meyersdale) tallied a team high 19 digs.
The Colonials return to action on Wednesday to take on Saint Francis (Pa.) at 7:00 p.m.
