The customary ‘first to 25’ scoring was not nearly enough for Marist and Siena in the decisive fourth set today; due to the sets win by two nature, the two sides played tug of war until the Red Foxes ultimately won 34-32, clinching a 3-1 victory in the match.
The 18 total points played past 24-24 saw Marist fend off four set points, while Siena stayed alive through an incredible eight match points, who originally held a 24-21 lead in the set.
“I had so much adrenaline, I didn’t even feel fatigued,” said sophomore outside hitter Sara Dasic.
Diving saves, timely aces, clutch swings and even a fair share of video reviews and some controversy prolonged the waning moments of the set. With the Red Foxes holding a 31-30 advantage, head coach Sean Byron believed he saw Siena lined up out of rotation and frantically tried to alert the officials. After redshirt freshman outside hitter Salme Adeele Hollas won Siena the point with a kill, Byron and the near-official had a lengthy conversation before he stuck with the original call on the court.
Now tied at 31, redshirt senior middle blocked Sina Toruslu dropped an untouched ace behind Marist’s back row. There, Marist rattled off three consecutive points to finally put the wild set to bed and win the Red Foxes their second match of the season.
Earlier in the set, Marist erased a seven-point deficit with a ten-point scoring run, then blew a four-point advantage of their own. The chaotic set seemed destined for an unforgettable finish and did not disappoint.
“We just needed to keep playing hard,” said sophomore libero Katherine Thompson. “We never said ‘swing easy, make a safe play.’ We said, ‘serve hard at the line, hit hard, keep swinging.’”
Knotted up at 32, an unbelievable one-arm dig from Dasic went straight to graduate student setter Jamison White, who sent it to freshman outside hitter Taylor Miller up for a kill. The duo of hitters led Marist in kills on the day: Dasic with 22 and Miller with 17.
One point later, Miller ended the match with a push towards the back corner of Siena’s court. When the ball met the floor, it clinched Marist’s second win of the season.
Nearly two and a half hours earlier, Siena initially pulled away in the first set thanks to back-to-back aces from sophomore outside hitter Hannah Bowman, which nicked the tape of the net. Byron called timeout, but it did not halt the Saints’ momentum. They scored the next two points after the break to cap off a 6-0 run that gave Siena a healthy 15-8 lead.
The seven-point deficit proved too much to overcome for the Red Foxes, who recorded numerous errors to make their comeback attempt all the more difficult. Marist ended the set with 11 errors, including three from the service.
Dasic tallied seven kills in the first set, helping the Red Foxes remain effective despite the errors that plagued them. Marist swung for an impressive .321 hitting percentage; the only problem was Siena boasted an eye-popping .462 percentage, depositing 15 kills on 26 attempts, only recording three attack errors.
Thompson gave the Red Foxes a much-needed jolt in the second set. The sophomore libero served tough on a seven-point run early in the set, scoring three aces and inducing a Siena overpass, which freshman middle hitter Sarah Bumstead deposited for a kill.
“[Byron] just said, ‘let’s make sure we keep serving hard; we have this lead so let’s be aggressive at the line’,” said Thompson.
Though Thompson helped Marist to a five-point lead, the Saints stayed in it, eventually shrinking the lead to just one point. Miller did not let them tie it as she ripped a set from sophomore setter Kaitlyn Owens past the Siena block.
The vicious kill quickly swung the momentum back in Marist’s favor. The Red Foxes scored five of the following seven points, winning the set when Dasic scored her 14th kill of the match on a perfect out-of-system set by sophomore libero Claudia Kasperski.
Dasic picked up right where she left off after the between-set break, nailing a kill on the match’s first point. It may have been just a one-point advantage, but it proved to be a lead the Red Foxes did not relinquish for the rest of the set.
Siena’s offense struggled mightily, only hitting .095 and recording seven attack errors. Marist continued to apply pressure from the service line, landing five aces in the set.
The consecutive set victories for Marist pressed Siena’s backs up against the wall, and the Saints played like it. Fighting for their lives, they took the first four points of the set, eventually nabbing a quick 9-3 lead.
The lead got as high as seven before the Red Foxes settled in and flipped the set upside down. They rattled off 10 consecutive points to turn a seven-point deficit, into a three-point advantage. Two timeouts within the run from Siena head coach Simone Asque-Favia did not stop the bleeding, but they did not go down without a fight to Siena’s credit.
Marist reached match point with a three-point cushion, but the Saints swiftly scored two points to inch within one. On a swing to potentially win the match by Miller, the ball returned to her on an overpass. A little too eager to end the match, Miller sailed the ball out of bounds.
With the score tied, sophomore setter Oliwia Majtyka placed an ace directly on the back line of the court to give Siena their first of four set points, all of which Marist fended off. The Red Foxes scored a whopping 24 kills in the final set of play.
Marist has a quick turnaround ahead of them as they start their weekend set on Saturday at 1 p.m. against the Saint Peter’s Peacocks in the McCann Center.
“We should be ready for them after getting kind of embarrassed by them down there,” said Byron regarding Marist’s 3-0 loss at Saint Peter’s on Oct. 13. “That’s probably one that they’ve got a chip on their shoulder for.”
Edited by Jaylen Rizzo
Photo and graphic by Jaylen Rizzo
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