COLLEGEVILLE, Pa. – The Haverford College volleyball team swept past homestanding Ursinus on Wednesday evening inside Helfferich Hall on the Ursinus campus in Collegeville. Set Scores were 25-16, 25-12, 25-19. Haverford posted a .333 hitting percentage while holding the Bears to a .061 mark. Natalie Pisch recorded a double-double with 12 kills and 13 digs. Sara Matsumura set a new career high with 12 kills. Haverford is now 11-7 on the season, including a 1-3 mark in Centennial Conference play. Ursinus falls to 5-12 and 0-4 in Centennial Conference play.
Haverford and Ursinus were locked in an early first-set battle, with the score tied at 7-7. From that point, Haverford rattled off a 7-0 run to take a 14-7 lead following a kill from Julia Gallagher-Teske. The advantage stretched to 20-10, as Claire Nicholas delivered a kill to trigger a Bears timeout. Haverford was on the brink of a set one victory at 24-12, but Meghan O'Leary registered three straight service aces as part of a 4-0 run to keep things interesting for Ursinus before Haverford ended it at 25-16 as the Bears committed an attack error. The Fords hit .406 in the set, making just one error on 32 total attacks.
The second set saw the Fords in a great rhythm, hitting .379 in the stanza. The Fords pulled out to an early 8-3 lead, causing Ursinus to signal for timeout. Haverford would stretch the lead to 15-5, as Sara Matsumura contributed a pair of important kills in the stretch that also featured four Ursinus errors. The lead became 20-9 following a Nicholas kill and the Fords took advantage of three straight errors from the Bears to pull to a 25-12 win after taking a 21-11 lead.
In the third set, Haverford called for timeout trailing early at 13-10 and the referees uncovered an illegal substitution from Ursinus that credited Haverford with an extra point while subtracting four from the Bears during the timeout. Haverford was able to take advantage of the newfound lead with Nicholas, Pisch, and Matsumura anchoring a rally that helped the Fords pull away. Ursinus charged back, cutting the Haverford lead to 22-19 following a block by Miranda Foster and Kelly Piotrowicz and an attack error from the Fords, but Haverford used back-to-back kills from Gallagher-Teske and a final exclamation point kill from Matsumura to win the set 25-19, securing a sweep.
In addition to the double-digit kill totals from Pisch and Matsumura, the Fords also received six kills from Nicholas and four from Gallagher-Teske. Zoe Wong had 33 assists while Pisch had 13 digs and Sydney Miller contributed 11. Nicholas had three total blocks while posting two service aces. Gallagher-Teske also recorded two service aces.
Haverford improves to 32-8 all-time against Ursinus. The Fords have not lost to the Bears in the rally scoring era and have not lost a match to Ursinus in Collegeville since 1993.
The Fords will return to action with a 1 p.m. start at Gettysburg on Saturday, October 7. The contest is part of a tri-match that also features Manhattanville. The Fords will do battle with the Valiants out of the MAC Freedom conference at 3 p.m.