Volleyball Sets Program Record for Wins in a Season in 3-0 Victory over Worcester State

PAXTON, Mass.—The Anna Maria College volleyball team set a new program record for wins in a season with tonight's 3-0 win over the Worcester State University Lancers. Set scores were 29-27, 25-15, and 25-23.

The win is the 18^th of the season for the AMCATS, who improve to 18-10 overall. The previous record of 17 wins was set last season. Worcester State falls to 11-17 on the season.

THE SERIES

Tonight's victory marks the first time in program history that Anna Maria has defeated the Lancers. Entering tonight's game, the Lancers had won 12-straight matches against Anna Maria dating back to 2003. Last season's 3-1 victory was the first time the AMCATS won a set before claiming all three in the win tonight.

AMCAT LEADERS

Anna Maria saw a match-high 19 kills from sophomore Amari King (Lawrence, Mass.), along with 16 digs for her 14^th double-double of the season. Junior Rebecca Foti (Bedford, N.H.) added 16 kills and 13 digs.

Sophomore Carolina Garcia (Springfield, Mass.) paced the AMCAT defense with a match-high 25 digs. Senior Demi Carrero (Mamaroneck, N.Y.) chipped in with 11 digs.

Freshman setter Tierney Clancy (Meriden, Conn.) dished out 34 assists and finished with three of the team's eight service aces.

WORCESTER STATE LEADERS

Emily Carens led the Lancers with 11 kills and 17 digs. Katrina Kanwijaya also finished with 17 digs, while Caleigh Davis tallied 12. Setter Alexandra Nolan dished out 23 assists.

HOW IT HAPPENED

The first set saw that AMCATS open a seven-point lead at 17-10 but a Lancer rally cut the gap to just three points, at 17-14. The Lancers continued to chip away at the deficit, and an AMCAT hitting error would tie the score at 22-22. The two teams would deadlock at every point increment after that until the 27-27 mark when a kill by King and a service ace by Carrero sealed the 29-27 extra-points win.

The AMCATS never trailed in the second set and quickly opened a comfortable lead. The hosts posted 15 kills in the set and made just six attack errors en route to the 2-0 advantage.

Worcester State made Anna Maria work a little harder in the third set. After giving the AMCATS five-straight points to open the set and allowing the hosts a cozy lead for most of set, the Lancers would hold the AMCATS at the 20-point for a five-serve stretch, using that opportunity to make it a three-point affair at 20-17. The Lancers would go on another run with Anna Maria at set-point, scoring four-straight points to bring the score to 24-23 before the AMCATS won on a Worcester State attack error.

Anna Maria hit at .168 on the day while holding Worcester State to a .096 hitting percentage.

WHAT'S NEXT

The AMCATS travel to Mount Ida on Friday evening for a Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) tri-match. The AMCATS will take on the Mustangs at 4:00 p.m. and will play Norwich at 6:00