Volleyball | 10/9/2018 6:26:00 AM

MOON TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- The Robert Morris volleyball team takes a short break from Northeast Conference play when it heads to downtown Pittsburgh to take on the Dukes of Duquesne University in its final non-conference match of the 2018 regular season.

First serve at the A.J. Palumbo Center is scheduled for 6:00 p.m. EDT, and the match can be seen live on ESPN Plus (subscription required).

Robert Morris (7-12, 1-4) at Duquesne
Tue., Oct. 9 (6:00 p.m.) - LIVE STREAM ($) | LIVE STATS

COMPLETE NOTES PACKAGE: Robert Morris at Duquesne (Oct. 9, 2018) (PDF)

The Colonials seek their first win over their cross-town rival since Sept. 25, 2007, a four-set win (29-31, 30-28, 30-22, 30-27) at the Charles L. Sewall Center. Baldwin High School product Tawnya Storino tallied a double-double with a season-high 59 assists and ten digs. Cassie Lee tallied a career-high 19 kills, along with five total blocks and four digs.

Emily Wolthuis led all competitors with 20 kills, and Amanda Graham, a 2018 RMU Athletics Hall of Fame inductee, added 11.

Duquesne took their last meeting, Sept. 2, 2017 at the Palumbo Center, in straight sets to close out the Duquesne Invitational. Emma Granger was named to the all-tournament team after averaging 3.18 kills per set and 1.09 blocks per set while hitting .448 for the weekend.

Last Time Out
Taylor Lord drove home a season-high 16 kills on a .324 attack average and added nine digs for the Colonials, who hammered St. Francis Brooklyn in four sets (25-20, 25-22, 14-25, 25-17) at the North Athletic Complex Friday night. Robert Morris continued its long-standing dominance of the NEC rivalry by winning for the 38th time in 40 recorded meetings with the Terriers.

On Saturday, Emma Granger finished with a match-high 15 kills while adding three blocks and a pair of service aces, but it wasn't enough to prevent defending NEC champion LIU Brooklyn from taking a four-set victory.

Scouting The Opponent
Duquesne (7-11, 2-4) is also coming off a weekend split in conference play. The Dukes were swept by Atlantic 10 rival Dayton on Friday, but they rebounded for a four-set triumph (25-20, 22-25, 25-23, 25-20) over visiting St. Louis Sunday afternoon after having dropped their prior seven meetings with the Billikens.

Rookie outside hitter Summer Slade led the offense on Sunday with 12 kills, and senior middle hitter Kori Johnson added 11 on a .647 attack average. This was the third time this season Johnson has hit .600 or better.

Defensively, senior libero Camryn Vecera paced Duquesne with 22 digs against SLU, and she leads the team with 5.17 digs per set this season. She led all competitors with 18 the last time she faced Robert Morris.

Meanwhile, rookie middle hitter Camryn Thomas made the all-tournament team for the RMU Sheraton Innvitational Sept. 14-15 after finishing the event with 13 total blocks and 11 kills.

MUSKET SHOTS

Native Whit
Pittsburgh-raised Whitney Brown received her third NEC Prime Performer nod of the season for her Homecoming Week efforts. She averaged 10.62 assists per set this past weekend, and she co-led the Colonials with a combined seven total blocks, including a team-high six block assists. Brown remains second in the NEC with 8.35 assists per set, and she is sixth in RMU history with a career average of 6.32 per set. She picked up ten helpers in two sets of play in last year's outing against the Dukes.

Lord Have Mercy
Taylor Lord achieved her team-leading fourth double-double of the season in the NEC opener at Central Connecticut Sept. 21 with ten kills and ten digs. Her third double-double of last season came against the Dukes, with 12 kills and 11 digs in the Duquesne Invitational finale. As a rookie, she narrowly missed one against Duquesne, settling for nine kills and 17 digs Sept. 1, 2015 at the Sewall Center.

Righteous In-Dig-Nation
Allie Yurkovich made the RMU Sheraton Innvitational All-Tournament Team and was named Molten/NEC Co-Defensive Player of the Week for the first time in her career after averaging a team-high 3.93 digs per set Sept. 14-15. She enters Tuesday fifth in RMU lore with 3.49 digs per set all-time, just ahead of Lord (3.31), fifth in the NEC with 3.78 per set this season and fourth with 4.32 per set in NEC play.

Change For A Nikol?
Nikolette Zanolli has provided depth behind Yurkovich at the libero spot. She led Robert Morris with 45 total digs at the Charm City Challenge in Baltimore Sept. 7-8, and she paced the Colonials with 14 digs verus St. Francis Brooklyn last Saturday. Zanolli is averaging 2.78 digs per set in non-conference play and 2.59 per set on the road this season.

The Sky's The Limit
Skylar Clements has established career highs in kills twice this year, most recently on Sept. 14 versus Eastern Michigan, and her five total blocks versus St. Francis Brooklyn last Saturday marked the third time she has equaled that career high. Clements is ninth in the NEC with her .246 hitting percentage, and her .260 clip in conference play is sixth-highest among all qualified players.

Wonder Woman
Emma Granger received her first career NEC Player of the Week Award for her Week 4 efforts, including her performance in the RMU Sheraton Innvitational. She made the all-tournament team after hitting .326 for the weekend and averaging a team-best 3.29 kills per set while leading RMU in kills for all three tournament matches. Granger is fifth in the NEC with her .285 attack average entering Tuesday, and her .288 clip in NEC play is good for fourth in the conference.

Ace In The Hole
With her second-set ace versus Loyola Sept. 7, Taylor Lord became the 11th player at RMU to amass 100 career service aces. Emma Granger, who is third in the NEC at 0.39 aces per set, registered two against Duquesne as a rookie en route to her new RMU single-year record (61). Meanwhile, the career-high five by Brown at UMBC Sept. 7 made her the sixth different Colonial to record that many in a five-set match. Allie Yurkovich led the team with three aces in last year's meeting with the Dukes.

What's In A Name?
In 1935, the Pittsburgh School of Accountancy, established 1921, took the name of Robert Morris, the Founding Father and Pennsylvanian known as the "Financier of the American Revolution," though it was not known as "RMU" until 2002. The Colonials own three wins over Duquesne (records from 1981-83; 1985-86 and 1988-89 are missing) from when they were "Robert Morris College," beginning in 1969.

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