WHEELING, W. Va. – The historic season continues as Urbana University women's volleyball earned its first trip to the Mountain East Conference Tournament Finals with Friday's 3-1 semifinals win over No. 3 Seed West Virginia State.
UU (19-12) defeated West Virginia State (21-14) for the second time this season by final scores of 25-22, 25-14, 11-25, and 25-15. The Blue Knights snuck through as the two seed after tying the Yellow Jackets with a 12-4 league record during the regular season. Urbana's win at West Virginia State three weeks ago was the tiebreaker.
Serving proved to be a huge factor in Friday night's historic win, which was only the second MEC semifinals appearance for Urbana. The Blue Knights totaled 11 aces with five players recording at least two while the Yellow Jackets had just three aces.
In the opening set, Urbana trailed by as much as six with West Virginia State in front 15-9 following a service error. Then,
Courtney Niesen recorded back-to-back aces to get momentum going for Urbana and an ace by
Anna Davis tied the score 20-20. The strong serves continued as another ace by
Hannah Delor put UU in front for good to claim the opening set.
Delor, who led with 17 kills, recorded six of those in the first set. In addition, the Blue Knights produced five of their 11 aces in the opening frame.
In the second set, Urbana jumped out to a 7-3 lead but West Virginia State climbed back to make it a two-point game following a Gabrielle Bullock kill to make it 9-7. Then, the Blue Knights caught fire with an 11-3 run and cruised to a 2-0 match lead as five different players recorded a kill. The run was capped by, you guessed it, another ace this time by
Jenna Franks, who finished with three on the night.
West Virginia State, who is known for its high flyers at the net, finally got rolling in the third set and pulled out a deflating 25-11 win to cut Urbana's match lead to one, 2-1.
The Blue Knights stuck together though and quickly erased the third set from their minds by storming out to a 10-2 lead in the fourth. After riding out another Yellow Jackets' comeback attempt, Urbana continued its strong play in the final set by building a 20-12 advantage and held on for the clincher.
Delor led with a double-double on 17 kills and 14 digs while
Maggie Burns also reached double figures with 11 kills.
Lexi Reinert (8),
Kaitlin Trace (7) and
Natalie Perez (5) contributed on the attack while combining for nine block assists.
Anna Davis had 38 assists and
Courtney Niesen gathered a team-high 24 digs. Franks posted 10 digs along with her three aces.
WVSU's Jenna Dufresne led the Yellow Jackets with 13 kills.
Both teams hit .164 in overall hitting percentage with Urbana posting over .230 in three of the four sets.
UP NEXT: Urbana will take on the winner between No. 1 Wheeling and No. 4 Davis & Elkins tomorrow night at 7 p.m. ET with an automatic NCAA postseason bid on the line. Wheeling has won the previous six MEC championships.
