OWINGS MILLS, MD – The Johns Hopkins volleyball team kicked off a four-game road trip with a match against Stevenson Thursday night, sweeping the Mustangs, 3-0 (25-9, 25-18, 25-21) to complete its regular season non-conference schedule with a win. The victory extends the Blue Jays' win streak to 14 matches and moves them to 24-2 on the season, with the loss dropping Stevenson to 12-13.
 
A year after she set the program record for kills in a five-set match, Simrin Carlsen was the Mustang whisperer once again in Thursday's win, registering a match-best 14 kills while hitting .591. The senior was joined in double figures by Jilienne Widener (13) and Simone Adam (10) as Hopkins set a season-best mark for kills in a three-set match with 53 while hitting over .500 as a team for the second time in three matches.
 
Thursday's opening set was all Blue Jays from start to finish, with Hopkins hitting an untouchable .704 compared to .217 for the hosts. A Widener-Brooklyn Pater block set the tone before Widener and Carlsen combined for eight of the next 11 Blue Jay points to put Hopkins up 12-3 early. The lead remained double digits at 19-9 following a Stevenson kill before the Jays went on a set-closing 6-0 run that included Widener and Carlsen's sixth and seventh kills of the frame respectively to finish the set 25-9.
 
Set 2 was more tightly contested, with the lead changing hands four times before the Mustangs built their lead to as much as three at 11-8. Trailing by just two a few points later, Hopkins turned a Carlsen finisher into a 6-1 run that flipped the script and put the Blue Jays in front 16-13. An Adam kill won Hopkins the race to 20, with Stevenson's Giulia Viglietta scoring two of the next three points to trim the lead to three at 21-18 before a 4-0 run that was capped off by a pair of Kate Danaher — the graduate student piled on 27 assists in the win — to Chidinma Onukwugha connections closed out the second set 25-18.
 
The final set of Hopkins' Halloween matchup was the closest of the evening as the Blue Jays hit a still-impressive .379 while the hosts hit .171 in a narrow, 25-21 victory. Like Set 2, Thursday's finale began as a back-and-forth affair with the lead changing eight times before a Sydney Salazar kill knotted things at 13. Hopkins attempted to pull away, but Stevenson had an answer every time until two-straight points from the Mustangs put the Blue Jays down 20-19. From there, however, Hopkins got kills from Ivy Swafford, Widener and Adam as well as a Yu-Adam block to turn the disadvantage into a 23-20 lead. Another Mustang kill made it a two-point game, but Widener tallied her 13^th kill of the night before combining with Yu for a block to close out Set 3, 25-21 and the match, 3-0.
 
The Blue Jays continue their road trip Saturday, Nov. 2 when they travel to Pennsylvania to take on Swarthmore in a match of the unbeatens in Centennial Conference play. First serve is scheduled for 1 p.m.