Moon Township, Pa. - Sept. 27, 2009 - The Robert Morris University Colonials faced their first five-set match of the season and fell to the Chicago-Illinois Flames, 3-2, in heartbreaking fashion. Despite the loss, the Colonials recorded a season-high 63 digs. The loss marks RMU's 12th straight and brings its record to 3-13, while the Flames improve to 7-8.
Robert Morris opened up play with the first point when UIC made an attacking error. From that point on the two squads continued to swap points and the score remained within one or two until the Flames pulled away at 19-19. UIC's Casie Sullivan recorded a kill, which was followed by a couple of RMU attack errors to bring the score to 22-19. Robert Morris was finally able to side-out, but the Flames took back the serve right away and went on to win 25-20.
The Colonials came back in set two with a lot of fire power and dominated play. Junior Amanda Graham (Melbourne, Fla. / Eau Gallie) set the tone of the set with the first put down, which was followed by a kill from sophomore Hannah Veith (Columbus, Ohio / Worthington). Graham tallied back-to-back service aces to give RMU a 4-0 advantage. The Flames were never able to catch up to the Colonias, which led to a 25-14 RMU win. The duo of Graham and Veith combined for a total of nine kills in set two and recorded hitting percentages of .714 and .667, respectively. As a team, the Colonial defense held the Flames to a .000 hitting percentage, while they tallied 13 kills on a .414 average.
Set three opened up completely opposite set two, with UIC earning five unanswered points. However, a kill by sophomore setter Alyssa Bennett (Ramona, Calif. / Ramona) earned RMU a side-out and Graham went back to the service line and went on four-point run to knot the score 5-5. The Flames were able to get the serve back with a kill by Kelsey Safranek and a service ace by Lana Lobdell gave UIC a 7-5 advantage. The Colonials answered back with Veith tallying back-to-back kills. The Flames recorded three consecutive attacking errors to give RMU its largest lead thus far at 10-7. The Colonials continued to lead for the remainder of play and a kill by Graham and freshman Amanda Craig (Houston, Texas / St. Agnes Academy) ended the set, 25-18.
The Flames and the Colonials started set four trading side-outs, but the Flames slowly began to create a lead, that Robert Morris was never able to surpass. The Flames attacked at a .429 efficiency to RMU's .167, which led to a 25-17 UIC win to force the fifth set.
Robert Morris earned the first two points of the deciding set off the serve of Graham, but the Flames quickly responded with two kills to knot the score 2-2. Veith tallied her 15th kill of the match to side-out and Robert Morris expanded on the lead with a UIC error and another kill by Veith. Robert Morris was able to get a string of points going and held a solid lead at 10-4 after junior Corinne Moser(Meyersdale, Pa. / Meyersdale) recorded a service ace and Craig tallied another kill. Unfortunately, UIC went on a five point run to cut into the Colonial lead 10-9. Robert Morris called a time-out to regroup, but the Colonials never were able to recover and fell to the Flames 15-11.
Veith tallied a career-high 16 kills on a .538 hitting percentage and tied a match-high six blocks. Craig and Bennett both tallied double-doubles with Craig registering 12 kills and 15 digs and Bennett captured 43 assists and 10 digs, while also grabbing two aces and seven kills. Graham recorded a match-high three service aces and added 10 kills and four blocks and Moser tallied 17 digs and two service aces.
The Colonials start up league action next weekend when they take on Saint Francis (Pa.) at on Friday, Oct. 2 at 7:00 p.m. and Quinnipiac on Saturday, Oct. 3 at 2:00 p.m.
