BALTIMORE, MD – The Johns Hopkins volleyball team wrapped up an undefeated weekend at the Hopkins Invitational Saturday afternoon, beating Cortland 3-1 (19-25, 25-17, 25-18, 25-19) in its opener before sweeping Mary Washington 3-0 (25-16, 25-21, 25-19) in front of the home crowd. The Blue Jays move to 13-2 with the pair of wins while the Red Dragons and Eagles fall to 11-4 and 7-9 respectively.
Game 1: Johns Hopkins 3, Cortland 1
The Blue Jays dropped the match's first set for just the fourth time this season before righting the ship in a four-set win over the Red Dragons.
Simone Adam (16),
Simrin Carlsen (12) and
Jilienne Widener (11) all eclipsed double figures in kills while
Kate Danaher racked up a match-best 26 assists. Defensively Brookyln Pater and Widener registered six blocks apiece while
Evelyn Batista added 14 digs to pair with her match-high four service aces.
Widener was involved early in Saturday's match, registering a pair of kills and a block to put Hopkins up 5-4. A 5-1 response by the visitors gave them a 9-6 lead they would hold the rest of the way, with the Blue Jays getting within two on three occasions before kills from the Red Dragons' Jennifer Koestner and Emma Reilly closed out Set 1 25-19.
Set two was all Hopkins, with the Blue Jays hitting a match-best .406 en route to a 25-17 win. Widener and
Alice Yu started the scoring with a block before a 3-0 burst with kills coming from Adam, Carlsen and Widener put Hopkins back in front 4-2. Cortland leveled things at five and 11 before a 6-2 run that was sandwiched by Adams' fourth kill of the set and Yu's first ace of the season made it 17-13.
A Koestner kill stopped the bleeding, but it was a Pater-Carlsen rejection ignited another 4-1 run to put Hopkins up 20-14. The Red Dragons got as close as four at 21-17 before a pair of Batista aces closed out the second to tie the sets at one apiece.
Cortland jumped out to a 7-2 lead in Set 3, but a Red Dragons service error turned into an 11-3 run that catapulted the Blue Jays in front 13-10. The run was capped off by two Adam kills — her 10
th and 11
th of the match — to push the junior's career total to 850, with another kill later in the frame moving her into sole possession of 15
th on the program's all-time kills list. Hopkins kept a narrow lead until the score read 18-16 and the Blue Jays turned a Carlsen ender into a set-closing 7-2 run.
The final set of Saturday's opener also saw the visitors go in front early, holding a 6-2 advantage before a big time block from Widener and Pater sparked a 4-0 run to tie things at six. The Blue Jays took their first set lead at 10-9 after Batista's fourth ace of the afternoon and began a back-and-forth affair that would see the sides stay within two of each other until it was 18-17. From there it was Carlsen striking again, pairing with Adam to build the lead to 23-18 before
Ivy Swafford registered the match's final two kills, wrapping up the set 25-19 and earning Hopkins the 3-1 win.
Yu, who tied her season high with four blocks in the match, also moved into the top 10 in program history in blocks, pushing her tally to 221 by the end of the weekend to overtake Lauren Anthony for 10
th. The junior is one of just three players to rank in the top 10 that began their career this century.
Game 2: Johns Hopkins 3, Mary Washington 0
Adam led the charge offensively once again in the Blue Jays' sweep of the Eagles, racking up 12 kills in just two sets. Elsewhere it was
Annika Anderson leading the team in assists for the first time this season with her career-high mark of 13 while Widener added seven blocks, bringing her total to 13 across both Blue Jay matches.
Set 1 belonged to Hopkins, which hit .300 while holding Mary Washington to a match-low .067 en route to the 25-16 win. Following an Adam kill to get things started it was the Eagles jumping out to a 7-4 lead, but the advantage was short-lived as an Onukwugha rocket kickstarted a 6-0 run that also featured a pair of blocks from Yu, Adam and
Pamela Chiakpo (x2) to take the 12-8 lead.
The Blue Jays slowly added to their advantage using an ace from
Emma Dionne, Chiakpo kill and solo block and kill from Adam to get it up to 23-12, with a Mary Washington comeback thwarted by a setting error to give Hopkins the 25-16 decision.
Adam, Widener and Swafford were all involved in the Blue Jays' first seven points en route to a 7-4 lead early in Set 2. Swafford saw her success at the net translate to the service line later in the set, adding a pair of aces to her career tally to put Hopkins up 12-6. Errors began to plague Hopkins in the middle of the set, allowing the Eagles to get within one at 20-19, but an Onukwugha kill — the senior's fifth of the match to pair with her two blocks — started a set-ending 5-2 run to close out the frame 25-21.
Saturday's final set once again saw the visitors jump in front early before the Blue Jays knotted things at 10 on a Widener-Yu denial. Mary Washington took the lead once again on a Sarah Moore kill, but a 9-2 run from that point turned an 11-10 deficit into a 19-13 lead for Hopkins. With the score 23-17, Widener and Yu combined for their seventh and third block of the match respectively before the graduate transfer took it upon herself to end the set (25-19) and match in sweeping fashion.
Hopkins' block was the story all weekend, with the Blue Jays combining for an otherworldly 35 blocks across their three matches in a dominant display on the defensive end.
Next up for Hopkins is its Centennial Conference opener Saturday, Oct. 5 when they will host Ursinus, with first serve set for 12 p.m.
