CARLISLE, PA – The Johns Hopkins volleyball team traveled to Pennsylvania to take on Dickinson in a Centennial Conference bout Wednesday night, battling to a 3-1 victory (25-21, 25-27, 25-14, 25-18) over the Red Devils in hostile territory. Along with the win clinching at least one home match in the upcoming Centennial Conference playoffs, Simone Adam joined an elite club in the mid-week matchup by becoming just the ninth player in program history to eclipse 1000 career kills.
 
The junior paced the Blue Jays (26-2, 9-0 Centennial) in the hard-fought win with 17 kills — the 10^th of which pushed Adam's career total to 1000 — and was joined in double figures by Simrin Carlsen (15) and Ivy Swafford (13). Kate Danaher (28) and Helena Swaak (23) both tallied north of 20 assists to help Hopkins hit .286 in the match, while defensively it was Brooklyn Pater and Jilienne Widener registering a match-best five blocks each.
 
Wednesday's opening set appeared to be in Hopkins favor at the midway point before a late Dickinson (13-12, 3-6 Centennial) tightened things up en route to a 25-21 Blue Jays win. Hopkins used a Pater-Carlsen block and a quartet of Red Devils errors to take a 5-2 advantage early in Set 1. A 4-1 burst by the hosts gave them their first lead of the set at 9-8 before the sides traded 3-0 runs — the Blue Jays' included a Swafford kill and Pater-Widener stuff — to keep it a one-score set at 12-11.
 
From there, however, a Pater kill sparked a 9-3 run capped off by Carlsen's fifth kill of the frame leapfrogged Hopkins to a 20-15 advantage. Dickinson turned to Amelia Kim — the junior led the match with 20 kills — for three of its next four points to trim the lead to two at 23-21 before a Pater finisher and the Red Devils' seventh error of the set closed things out 25-21.
 
Set 2 was the most tightly contested of the evening, but it was Dickinson hitting .273 compared to just .182 for Hopkins to take the frame 27-25 and level the sets at one apiece. The Red Devils saw their 5-0 start to the set answered by a 6-1 Blue Jays run to level things at 6-6. The score remained close until another Pater-Widener rejection — the 100^th of the season for Pater — started a 3-0 burst to put Hopkins up 14-12. The Blue Jays would be no worse than tied until a Carlsen kill that made it 23-22 was answered by a 2-0 Red Devils run to set the hosts up with set point. A Blue Jays timeout led to a Widener block and ace to make it 25-24 Hopkins, only for a Dickinson timeout to then set up the Red Devils to score the next three points and take Set 2, 27-25.
 
Fueled by the defeat in the second set, the Blue Jays quickly righted the ship in Set 3 in which Adam also hit her 1000-kill milestone, hitting .407 to claim a convincing 25-14 win. As was the case in the first two sets, there was little to separate the sides early, with neither team able to pull away by more than two points until the score read 11-10 in favor of the hosts. From that point, Widener and Adam registered consecutive kills — the junior's was her fourth of seven in the set and 1000^th of her career — to kickstart an 11-2 run that turned a one-point deficit into a 21-13 lead. A Red Devils kill momentarily stopped the bleeding before Carlsen struck for two more kills in a set-closing 4-0 run.
 
Wednesday's final set saw Hopkins register 21 kills at a .378 clip to bring its match total up to a season-best 63 kills and claim its 16^th straight win. The Bue Jays got five kills from four different players to start Set 4 up 5-3 before consecutive Dickinson kills made it a one-point set at 13-12. There with the answer for Hopkins, however, were Adam and Swafford, who went on a personal 4-0 run to build the lead back to its largest of the set at five. A final push from the hosts saw the score get as close as four at 22-18, but Adam's 17^th kill as well as a pair of finishers from Alice Yu wrapped up the set, 25-18 and match, 3-1.
 
Hopkins is back in action Saturday, Nov. 9 when they face off against Franklin & Marshall with the top seed in the Centennial Conference Tournament on the line. First serve is scheduled for 4 p.m.