BALTIMORE, MD – The ninth-ranked Johns Hopkins volleyball team hosted reigning National Champions Juniata College in Day 1 of the Greg Giovanazzi Memorial Tournament Friday night, falling 3-1 to the preseason No. 1 at home. After a slow start to the evening's contest the Jays kept things competitive in the final two sets before suffering the 16-25, 13-25, 25-22, 18-25 defeat.
Simone Adam and
Pamela Chiakpo shared the team-lead in kills for Hopkins, tallying nine apiece while
Helena Swaak finished the night with a team-high 27 assists. Grad transfer
Grace Reininga made her presence felt on the defensive end in her Jays debut, ending the match with a team-best 22 digs with
Alice Yu and freshman
Jordan Price notching four blocks apeice. Lily Podolan paced an imposing Eagles attack with 14 kills, while Olivia Foley finished with game-high totals in both assists (37) and digs (23).
Friday's first set was a back-and-forth affair between the Jays and Juniata, as the game was knotted at seven early on with kills coming from Swaak,
Ivy Swafford — the first of her collegiate career — and Yu for Hopkins. From there the Eagles used a brief 4-1 spurt to take an 11-8 advantage before another 4-0 run later in the set put the visitors up 19-13. The Jays tried to capitalize on a pair of Juniata errors but were never able to get closer in the set, eventually falling 25-16.
Hopkins jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead in the second set, but an 11-1 response by the Eagles put the Jays down eight points and forced a
Matt Troy timeout. The sides traded blows in the ensuing several points before a trio of service errors put Juniata up 20-10 with a 5-2 run ending the second set 25-13 in favor of the Eagles.
Juniata took an early 9-3 lead in the third set before momentum shifted in favor of Hopkins. A block by Adam and Price made it a 9-5 game before a pair of kills from Adam, one from Yu, and a block by the duo cut the lead to one. The Eagles got back on the board with a kill of their own, but another 4-0 run sparked by a Swaak-Yu denial gave the Jays its first lead of the set at 13-11. With the score level at 14 apiece, Hopkins and the Eagles began trading points until the score read 20-20. From there Adam — who had six kills in the third set alone — tallied two more and sparked a 5-2 run that resulted in a 25-22 third set win for the home side.
After hitting over .350 as a team in the first two sets, Juniata was held to just .057 in the third. Meanwhile, the Jays flipped the script as well, hitting .308 after they were unable to crack .100 in the opening pair of sets.
Adam carried over her momentum from the third set into Friday's final game, opening it up with her ninth kill of the night. From there, however, the Eagles went on an 8-1 run to take a commanding lead. Hopkins chipped into the lead with kills coming from Chiakpo, Yu, Price and Swafford getting it as close as a two-point game at 18-20 before Juniata closed the set and match with a 5-0 run.
Hopkins returns to action tomorrow for Day 2 of the Greg Giovanazzi Memorial Tournament, facing off against Beloit at 1 p.m. before wrapping up the weekend with a matchup against No. 19 Wittenberg at 5 p.m.
