WESTMINSTER, MD – The No. 8 Johns Hopkins volleyball team kicked off a three-match road trip with a Centennial Conference contest against McDaniel Wednesday night, sweeping the Green Terror 3-0 (25-16, 25-13, 25-14) in enemy territory. The win is the Jay's 10
th straight and sixth consecutive without dropping a single set, moving Hopkins to 19-3 on the year with a perfect 7-0 conference record.
Wednesday's match was one of the Blue Jays' more well-rounded efforts of the season, with
Simrin Carlsen (11),
Simone Adam (8) and
Alice Yu (8) all sharing the load offensively. On the defensive end,
Pamela Chiakpo's two solo blocks and Yu's four block assists paced the team — Hopkins held McDaniel to a hitting percentage of -.012 — while
Grace Reininga finished with a team-high 10 digs. McDaniel had few answers for
Evelyn Batista from the service line, as the junior tallied a season-best four aces in the win.
The Jays opened up Wednesday's contest with a kill and block by Chiakpo to go ahead 2-0, but a 6-2 response from the home side put the Green Terror (10-10, 1-6 Centennial) up 6-4. McDaniel stayed in front with the score at 10-6 before a block by
Helena Swaak and
Chidinma Onukwugha sparked a 6-0 run to take the 12-10 lead. The Green Terror momentarily stopped the bleeding after a Swaak service error, but Hopkins was not finished, as another 9-1 run all but put the first set to rest. With the Jays up 21-12, McDaniel got as close as seven before Carlsen closed it out with her third kill of the set, 25-16.
Set 2 started off with a 5-0 run by Hopkins that featured a kill from Yu as well as a pair of service aces from
Roxy Karrer. The Green Terror chipped away at the lead before tying the set at 7-7, but a quick 7-1 burst from the visitors put the Jays up 14-8. A pair of 3-0 runs saw the Jays push their lead to 20-11 before Carlsen sparked a set-closing 5-1 run to finish the second stanza 25-13 and put Hopkins up 2-0.
Wednesday's final set was the Blue Jays' best of the night on the attacking side, hitting a game-high .462 paced by seven kills from Carlsen. The junior got things going in a back-and-forth final set that saw Hopkins hold just a 7-6 advantage early on. That lead, however, quickly ballooned to 13-6 after Swaak kill started the 6-0 to put the Jays back in the driver's seat. Another 3-1 run made the set 16-7 before Batista's fourth and final ace put Hopkins ahead 10, 20-10. McDaniel once again refused to go down without a fight, closing the gap to 22-14, but a final 3-0 finished by a pair of kills from
Jordan Price wrapped up Set 3 25-14 and handed the Jays their sixth straight win in sweeping fashion.
Hopkins returns to action Saturday, October 28 for a tri match against Swarthmore and Virginia Wesleyan, with first serve of the weekend opener set for 12 p.m.
