BALTIMORE, MD – The Johns Hopkins volleyball team split its matches on Day 2 of the NYU Tournament Saturday afternoon, besting UC Santa Cruz 3-1 (22-25, 25-22, 25-23, 25-23) before suffering just its second loss of the season to MIT in four sets (20-25, 19-25, 25-15, 25-17). The Blue Jays conclude the weekend 2-1 to move to 10-2 on the year, with the Banana Slugs dropping to 7-9 while the Engineers remain undefeated with wins over Hopkins and 11^th-ranked NYU.
 
Game 1: Johns Hopkins 3, UC Santa Cruz 1
 
Saturday's opening match was a nailbiter from start to finish, with all four sets being decided by three points or fewer. It was the Blue Jays' veterans making their presence known in the win, with Jilienne Widener pacing the Blue Jays in kills with 16 while Kate Danaher added a season-best 32 assists. Chiakpo was everywhere for Hopkins, finishing with a team-best four aces and three blocks while it was freshman Nicole Tuszynski racking up a match-high 15 digs in her first collegiate start at libero.
 
The first frame belong to the Banana Slugs, who claimed the 25-22 win in a set they led the whole way. An 8-1 run halfway through the frame put Hopkins behind 16-8, but with the deficit at six (24-18) it was a Chiakpo-Simrin Carlsen block sparking a 4-0 run that would make it a two-point set before a final kill closed out the first.
 
Set 2 saw the Blue Jays' hitting percentage skyrocket — from .061 in the first to .531 in the second — in a frame in which they never trailed. Widener got things started for Hopkins by registering the team's first two kills, with a Simone Adam ender giving the Blue Jays an early 3-1 lead. With the score level at five following an attacking error, a trio of miscues by UC Santa Cruz turned a tied set into a 13-7 lead for Hopkins that was capped off by Adams' third kill of the frame.
 
The Blue Jays maintained a comfortable lead until a quick 3-1 run by the Banana Slugs made it 24-22, but Adam was there once again to send one into the hardwood and close out Set 2 25-22.
 
Friday's third set was the first in which the score changed hands, with just .005 separating the sides' hitting percentages — Hopkins held the .172 to .167 advantage. UC Santa Cruz took control early with an 8-2 lead, but a 3-0 response that featured a kill from Helena Swaak and Carlsen's third ace trimmed the lead to 8-5.
 
The deficit ballooned back to six at 15-9 before the Blue Jays' attack flipped a switch, using a pair of Widener kills and one from Adam to cut the lead to just one at 19-18. From there it was a Chiakpo ace giving Hopkins its first lead (22-21), with errors setting up a set point that was clinched by another Carlsen kill to put the Blue Jays up 2-1.
 
Set 4 saw kills from Widener and Brooklyn Pater put the Blue Jays up 5-2 early. With the score 12-7 it was Carlsen taking over, registering Hopkins' next four kills which — paired with a Swaak ace — made it a 17-10 set. As was the case all morning, however, the Banana Slugs had a comeback on their minds, cutting the deficit to two at 19-17 before the Blue Jays rode Adam and Widener to a 25-23 set and match win.
 
Game 2: Johns Hopkins 1, MIT 3
 
Hopkins was unable to get much going offensively for the entirety of their matchup against the undefeated Engineers (12-0), tallying its second lowest hitting percentage of the year (.215), racking up a season-high 12 service errors and tying its season low in blocks with just four in a four-set loss. Adam finished with a team-best 15 kills — followed closely by Ivy Swafford who registered a career-best 12 — with Pater adding four blocks while Batista tallied a match-best 20 digs. Looking for answers by way of their bench, the Blue Jays turned to Annika Anderson who was lights out from the service line, racking up five aces despite appearing in just two sets.
 
Set 1 was close at its start, with kills from Swafford and Carlsen giving Hopkins its first lead at 7-6. From there, however, it was MIT going on an 11-3 run to fly in front 17-10. Carlsen and Swafford struck again to cut the lead to 20-15 with a final push getting the Blue Jays as close as 23-20 before the Engineers scored the set's final two points.
 
There was little to separate the sides through the first half of the second set, but after a 4-2 Hopkins run that featured kills from Carlsen and Swafford as well as a pair from Adam to make it 15-14, it was the Engineers scoring seven of the next 10 points to balloon the lead 22-17. Carlsen and Adam would tack on one more kill apiece before MIT closed out the set 25-19 to go up two sets to none — just the second time Hopkins had lost two sets on the season.
 
The third set of Saturday's finale was the lone bright spot for the Blue Jays, who saw their hitting percentage rise to a team-best .269 and Anderson take over at the service line in a 25-15 win. Following a service error that gave Hopkins a 3-2 lead, Anderson entered to serve and would immediately hit a pair of aces as part of a 4-0 run that made it a 7-2 set. The lead would remain at five with the score 14-9, setting up Anderson at the line again where the freshman would add two more aces to give the Blue Jays their largest lead to that point at 17-9.
 
Hopkins won the race to 20 after another Swafford kill made it 20-12, with a 4-1 run that was started by Carlsen and ended by a Pater-Adam rejection closing out the set 25-15.
 
The Blue Jays took an early 3-2 lead in Set 4, but a 4-0 run by MIT gave the Engineers a lead they would not relinquish. Swafford kept Hopkins close in the middle of the set, tallying four straight points for the Blue Jays to keep them within striking distance, but with the score 17-15 another 5-0 MIT run made it 22-15, with a final error closing the set and match to hand Hopkins just its second loss of the season.
 
Next up for the Blue Jays is a return to Goldfarb Gym where they will face off against Eastern, SUNY Cortland and Mary Washington in the Hopkins Invitational. Matches will be played Friday, Sept. 27 and Saturday, Sept. 28, with action set to begin at 4:30 p.m. Friday.