WALTHAM, Mass. – The Brandeis University and Roger Williams volleyball teams put on an entertaining four-set match tonight, with three of the four sets being decided by two points. The visiting Hawks came away with the victory, 27-25, 18-25, 30-28, 25-23. Brandeis falls to 3-10 with the loss, while RWU improves to 4-7.
The first two sets were featured 14 ties and five lead changes, with the visitors taking the first, 27-25, and Brandeis winning the second, 25-18. The winning team hit over .200 in each of the first two sets; .211 for RWU in the first, .263 for the Judges in the second.
In the third, Roger Williams looked to take control with a pair of five-point streaks to take a 14-5 lead. The Hawks were still ahead, 17-10, when Brandeis battled back, going on an 13-6 run to tie the score at 23-all on a block by rookie Talia Freund (La Jolla, Calif./La Jolla) and sophomore Emerson White (Lexington, Ky./Sayre). The Judges were able to fend of five set points by the visitors, but RWU eventually strung together two in a row on a kill by Katherine Pickard and a Brandeis error to take the third, 30-28, after 10 ties and one lead change.
The fourth set started in a similar fashion, with Roger Williams scoring the first four points and Brandeis scoring the next four. The Hawks' Lauren Burbridge served four-straight points to give the visitors an 8-4 lead for the second set in a row. RWU was up 14-9 when Brandeis scored nine of the next 10 points on the serves of sophomore Emily Morrison (Richardson, Texas/Richardson) and rookie Amelia Oppenheimer (The Woodlands, Texas/The Woodlands). White had two kills and a block in the run as the Judges took an 18-15 lead. They extended it to 20-16 on a Belle Scott (Portland, Ore./Oregon Episcopal School) service ace, but couldn't pull away any further. RWU scored 10 of the last 15 points of the match, with Kristen Dansereau registering kills on the final four points to turn a 23-21 deficit into a 25-23 win.
Offensively, Brandeis was led by Scott, who had 17 kills and seven errors on 47 attacks for a .213 hitting percentage. White added a career-high 10 kills and made just one error in 23 chances for a .391 percentage, while also contributing seven blocks. Senior Emma Bartlett (Duxbury, Mass./Duxbury) came one kill shy of a triple-double, finishing with nine kills, 10 digs and a career-high 10 blocks (three solo). Junior Marissa Borgert (Blaine, Minn./Spring Lake Park) ran the offense with 35 assists, while sophomore Kaitlyn Oh (Santa Clara, Calif./Cupertino) had a match-high 26 digs.
RWU's Pickard and Dansereau led the visitors with 19 and 18 kills, respectively. Julia fields had 52 assists, while Kate Grabowski added 20 digs.
Brandeis returns to action next Thursday evening at 6 p.m. against WPI.