Moon Township, Pa. - Nov. 8, 2009 – Despite playing an aggressive match, the Robert Morris University Colonials fell to the Long Island Blackbirds 3-0 on Sunday afternoon at the Sewall Center. Freshman Lindsey Monger (Rising Sun, Md. / Rising Sun) captured a career-high 12 kills in the loss.
The loss drops the Colonials to 12-19 overall and 9-5 in league play, while the Blackbirds remain undefeated in league play with a 14-0 record and a 17-13 overall record.
Long Island started the first set on a 3-0 run with two kills by Ashley Rice. RMU captured their first point of the set when freshman Amanda Craig (Houston, Texas / St. Agnes Academy) fired a shot through the Long Island block for a kill. The Colonials were able to knot the score at 5-5, but LIU's Martina Racic went on a three point serving run to give the Blackbirds an 8-5 lead. RMU remained tight on the Blackbirds trail, but were never able surpass Long Island giving the Blackbirds a 25-17 set one win.
The Colonials played solid to start the second set and tallied five unanswered points to gain a 5-0 advantage. However, Long Island was finally able to side-out and quickly tied the score at 6-6. The score remained within one until a kill by LIU's Dunja Milin gave the Blackbirds a 12-9 lead. Robert Morris quickly recovered when freshman Nicole Wiechecki (Wilmington, Del. / Ursuline Academy) went on a four-point serving run to knot the score 13-13. The Blackbirds were able to get the serve back off a kill from Svetlana Simic, but Robert Morris went on another run at 14-14 to take an 18-14 lead. The Blackbirds chipped away at the Colonial lead and soon knotted the score at 20-20. The remainder of play was a battle between the Blackbirds and the Colonials, but Long Island came away with the 27-25 win.
Robert Morris started the third set with the first two points and soon captured a 4-1 lead off a couple kills by sophomore Hannah Veith (Columbus, Ohio / Worthington). From that point, the Colonials held the lead until a service ace by Simic tied the score at 12-12. The service ace was part of a 10 point run by Long Island, which gave them a 19-13 lead. Monger registered three consecutive kills with the score set at 20-14 in an effort to catch up to the Blackbirds, but Long Island was able to hold the lead and went on to win 25-19.
Veith finished the match with nine kills and three blocks and Craig added seven kills and 11 digs. Junior Corinne Moser (Meyersdale, Pa. / Meyersdale) tied a match-high 15 digs.
Robert Morris returns to action on Saturday, November 14 when it takes on Fairleigh Dickinson at 3:00 p.m.
