Senior right side hitter Rachel Roddy led the Point Park University’s women’s volleyball team with a season high of 23 kills Friday night in a win against Cedarville University, catapulting the team into a favorable position for a playoff run. “It was a good, hard-fought win,” Head Coach Mike Bruno said. After back and forth play, Point Park came out with a win against Cedarville at the Greentree SportsPlex with a scores of 25-21, 22-25, 25-15, 23-25 and 15-11. This win gives the Pioneers an overall record of 26-9 and 4-3 in the American Mideast Conference (AMC). The Pioneers now have a fourth place spot in the AMC and hold the tiebreaker between the two teams ranked below them, Cedarville and Daemen College, who they beat last week. “They have great work ethic and are not going to let the ball hit ground,” sophomore outside hitter Lindsey Oberacker said. “We had to out work them.”The first set was close, with Cedarville keeping the game to a score of 19-18 after Point Park took a small early lead. After a serve error by Cedarville and two kills by Point Park, the Pioneers were able to take a big enough lead to win the set 25-21. The second set was tied at 22 all, but Cedarville was able to sneak past Point Park and won the second set 25-22. Point Park was not going to let the lost set affect them and they came out strong in the third set to dominate with a score of 25-15. Cedarville took a small lead that the Pioneers were never able to overcome, and Point Park lost the fourth set 25-23. With only one set left, the Pioneers had to prove their dominance and scored the first four points of the set. Those four points were too much for Cedarville and Point Park won the fourth set 15-11, giving them the match win. “It was a team effort,” Roddy said. Roddy added to her 23 kills with 22 receptions, nine digs and five blocks. Oberacker had the final kill, giving her 14 kills and leaving Cedarville no chance to come back/ She also had nine digs, seven blocks and four serve aces. Senior middle hitter Ashley Zietak had 11 kills to help the team with their total of 58 kills.Point Park had a night full of blocks with 14 and junior middle hitter Rachel Stedina being involved in nine, one of them being the games only solo block. Junior setter Katie Geary was active all night with 49 assists to help her offense. The team played a good defensive game as well with sophomore defensive specialist Margaret Gillooly having 17 digs. Gillooly was followed by sophomore libero Amanda Ardinger who had 11 digs to help give the team 70 digs. Sophomore defensive specialist Alyssa Hall added 22 receptions, five digs and one kill to help with the win. “We did a great job figuring out their weaknesses,” Roddy said. Cedarville had 17 attack errors and nine assist errors compared to Point Park’s 18 attack errors and zero assist errors. Cedarville also had nine ball handling errors and nine block errors while Point Park only had five ball handling errors and three blocking errors. “We are hitting our stride at the perfect time,” Roddy said. And this stride will need to be continued with two AMC games next week away, before the AMC tournament begins Nov. 12. Point Park will have to stay in the top five to go to the tournament and have a chance at reaching the AMC Championship, something that was achieved last year for the first time in the team’s history.
Roddy ‘kills’ it on the court
Written By Emily Myers
June 29, 2016
0