BEVERLY, Mass.- Endicott squared off with CCC rival Gordon and was able to got out with a clean 3-0 sweep. Endicott was led by a pair of freshmen in Jackie Cone (Salem, N.H.) and Mackenzie Guerre (Carlsbad, Calif.) as the duo combined for 21 kills on the evening.
The Gulls won the first two sets by scores of 25-15, 25-18 before winning a nail biter 25-22. The first set saw Endicott jump out to a 5-1 lead before the Fighting Scots came back for the 7-6 advantage. Both teams traded points before Endicott's Mackenzie Guerre was able to go on a four point serving run making the score 13-8. From there, the Gulls never let the lead get closer than three as they took the set 25-15.
The second set followed a similar script to the first as Endicott was able to take an early lead and build on it. The Gulls forced the Gordon coaching staff into taking timeouts at 8-2 in favor of Endicott and again at 14-5. The Gulls kept swinging and were able to push the lead to 20-7 off of a Hannah Dahlgren (Queensbury, N.Y.) kill before the Scots fought back with a five point run of their own, highlighted by a Keri Hustus (Eastford, Conn.) ace. With the score standing at 20-12, the Gulls were able to trade sideouts the rest of the way as the final set score stood at 25-18.
Gordon was able to come out on fire early in the third set and jumped out to an 8-6 advantage behind a Faith Gerdes (Wall Lake, Iowa) kill. The Gulls would not be denied as they fought back to take an 18-12 advantage when Lexi Watts (San Diego, Calif.) recorded a kill. Both teams would play well the rest of the set as Gordon was able to close the gap to one at 23-22 before a service error and a Mackenzie Guerre kill ended the match with a final set score of 25-22.
Endicott was led by Jackie Cone as she recorded a line of 12 kills with five errors on 30 attempts for a .233 hitting percentage. Mackenzie Guerre continued her impressive campaign as the middle was able to hit .350 behind a nine kill, two error effort on 20 attempts. Fellow freshman Alleigh VandeMerkt (Riverside, Ill.) finished with 28 assists and five digs. Ashley Norley (Sudbury, Mass.) tallied 18 digs in the three set win.
Gordon was led by Lauren Kranyak (Locust Grove, Virginia) and Chelsie Clemens (Santa Barbara, Calif.) as the players recorded nine and eight kills respectively. Clemens' kills came on only 17 attempts as the junior middle hit .412 on the evening. Joy Kimmel (Madison, Conn.) led a balanced attack by dishing out 19 assists. Keri Hustus led the Scots with 14 digs.
Endicott now takes on Salem State an hour after the Gordon match before heading to Tufts for the UMass Invitational. Gordon takes on Emmanuel at Lasell on Saturday.
