Sept. 28, 2011

Box Score

UMass Lowell volleyball swept rival Merrimack College, 3-0, in North Andover, MA on Wednesday night in a non-conference match.

The win marked the second time this month the River Hawks have swept the Warriors, the first coming on Sept. 10 in the River Hawk Classic. UMass Lowell improves to 7-3 overall, while the Warriors slip to 3-11.

The River Hawks took a 1-0 advantage with a 26-24 victory in game one. UMass Lowell held a slight advantage through the majority of the set, but Merrimack pulled even at 21-21. Senior Trina Carroll (Hampton, N.H.) got the club back on track with a pair of kills and the River Hawks took advantage of some Warrior errors to pick up the win.

The second set played to extra points again as the score see-sawed over the final 18 points. Locked at 26-26, Merrimack committed an attack error and Kristina Wiltjer (Temecula, Calif.) slammed home an ace on the next serve to seize a 2-0 lead.

In the final set, UMass Lowell led by four at 22-18, but the Warriors put on a charge to close the gap to 23-22 and force a River Hawk timeout. Coming out of the timeout, freshman Anisa Smith (Moraga, Calif.) landed a kill and sophomore Brooke Peterson (Del Mar, Calif.) served a match ending ace to complete the sweep.

For the night, senior Lea Freeman (Methuen, Mass.) led the charge with 12 kills and three total blocks. Also cracking double-figures was Smith who landed 11 kills and dug six balls.

Setting up the pair was Wiltjer with 31 assists and two aces. She was accompanied in the passing game by freshman Hannah Rey (San Diego, Calif.) who tallied 10 digs and four kills.

Looking ahead, the River Hawks will go outside of their conference to host NYIT on Friday at 5 p.m.