DENVER - No. 14 Metro State topped rival Regis University 25-21, 25-20, 23-25, 25-22 on Tuesday evening in front of a record crowd of 741 at Metro State. The Roadrunners improved to 21-5 overall and 15-2 in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, while the Rangers fell to 15-11 and 10-7.
The win also avenged a five-set loss at Regis earlier this season.
Metro State's previous home attendance record was 726 set on Nov. 11, 1994, against Regis.
Bri Morley put down 17 kills to lead the Roadrunners offensively. Senior Lisa Jones was one of three Metro State players with 10 kills in the final home match of her career. She joined Emily Greenhalgh and Julie Causseaux with her kill total. Metro State's other senior, Anna Mapes had seven kills.
Setter Darcy Schwartzman dished out 44 assists and added a career-high seven kills to go with 10 digs.
Ngoc Phan, this week's AVCA National Player of the Week, had 18 digs.
The Roadrunners had a slow start in the first set and trailed 11-8. Schwartzman served a four-point run go give Metro State the lead at 12-11. Regis would never regain the lead after tying the set at 12-12. The Rangers fought off set point three times before a service error ended the set at 25-21.
Metro State opened the second set on fire, taking a 6-1 lead as Jones served five in a row. Morley had three kills in the first six points. A block by Morley and Causseaux gave Metro State a 13-7 lead and a service ace by Jones gave Metro State its largest lead of the match at 16-9. The Roadrunners again had trouble closing the set as Regis ran off five in a row after trailing 23-14. Metro State held Regis to a .062 hitting percentage in the second.
Anna Mapes had seven kills on Tuesday.
The Roadrunners jumped out to a 14-9 lead in the third, but that lead was quickly erased by a run of six-out-of-seven points for the Rangers as they tied it at 15-15. Regis took its first lead at 18-17. Metro State still had opportunities to close out the match in three sets, tying the score at 23-23 after a kill from Mapes, but Regis got two kills of its own to win 25-23.
The fourth set was close much of the way. Regis led by two at 14-12, but that was its largest lead of the set. Three straight Roadrunners points gave them the lead at 15-14 and they never trailed after that point. Two kills by Schwartzman ended the match and set at 25-22.
Metro State will finish the regular season on Saturday at Colorado Christian at 7 p.m. A win by the Roadrunners on Saturday, coupled with a loss by No. 10 Nebraska-Kearney in one of its two road matches this weekend would give Metro State a share of the regular season RMAC title, its first since 2003.
No comments:
Post a Comment