NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. – The Red Foxes handled business at Iona on Friday afternoon, sweeping the Gaels to stay alive in their push for the MAAC Tournament.
Marist posted .286 hitting percentage and killed 38% of its attacks, an extremely efficient offensive display. Freshman outside hitter Mallory Reck dominated with 10 kills on 20 swings, only committing one attack error.
The catalyst of the strong offense, graduate student setter Claire Lewis, assisted on 21 of Marist’s kills, and applied consistent pressure from the service line. Though she did not record an ace, Lewis consistently threw Iona out of system with short, soft serves.
Iona took control of the first set with a 7-1 run heading into the media timeout, as their offense picked Marist apart, hitting an even .500. The Gaels consistently found the floor with offspeed attacks, but also muscled swings past the Red Foxes defense when they needed to. The Gaels continued to pull away, leading 19-16 before Marist head coach Sean Byron burned a timeout.
Out of the break, junior outside hitter/libero Sanem Bas sailed a serve past a dodging freshman right-side hitter Ava Lanzetta, Lewis dropped in an a serve near the attack line that Iona failed to get back over the net and then followed with a setter dump that harmlessly fell to the floor on Iona’s side, tying the set at 19.
Head coach Alyssa Kaufman called a timeout of her own, but it did not slow Marist down, as the Red Foxes won five of the next seven points, reaching set point after a kill from Reck. Iona made Marist sweat, winning two straight to pull within one, but Reck put the set to bed by tooling the Gaels’ block.
“We just had to get Mallory the ball,” said Byron regarding his message in the crucial timeout at 19-16.
In their first matchup of the season, a 3-0 Marist sweep on Oct. 4, only six points separated Marist and Iona in the match. The evenly matched play continued in the first set; both squads hit .375.
Marist controlled the entirety of the second set, as the Gaels never led after going up 2-1. The Red Foxes appeared to be on their way to a dominant set win, leading 22-15, but with heightened hustle to keep rallies alive, Iona scored five straight points to creep within two.
The Red Foxes leaned on junior outside hitter Sara Dasic, whose two kills brought Marist to set point – freshman outside hitter Julia Leonardo sent a swing off the antenna to give the Red Foxes a 25-21 victory. Dasic had six kills in the set, accounting for nearly half of Marist’s 14 kills to give her squad a crucial 2-0 advantage.
Dasic stayed hot with a kill to open the third, but four straight points for the Gaels gave them a healthy 13-9 lead after a back-and-forth start. Marist stormed back shortly after, rattling off a 5-0 run out of the 15-point media timeout; back-to-back kills prompted an Iona timeout.
The timeout was just a footnote, as the onslaught continued. The Red Foxes won three of the next four points to stake a 21-16 lead, eventually winning the set 25-19 and the match 3-0. Marist’s offense started slow in the third set, but after the media timeout looked as good as it has at any point this season while they pulled away.
Marist now shifts its attention to the rest of the MAAC’s matches today with serious playoff implications. A win for Canisius over Sacred Heart would essentially eliminate the Pioneers from playoff contention and push the Golden Griffins above a potential messy tiebreaker.
If Manhattan upsets Siena this evening, the Red Foxes will control their own destiny the rest of the way; tied for sixth with a 7-8 record in the MAAC, Marist would hold the tiebreaker over Siena.
“If we don’t win [out], we’re probably out,” said Byron. “It’s cut and dry. You can want extra help and all that other stuff, but if we want to have a chance to be in, we have to win [out].”
Manhattan is stronger than its 1-13 MAAC record suggests. Five of the Jaspers losses have come in five-set matches that could have gone either way.
“He’s a really good coach,” Byron said of Mauro Miletic, Manhattan’s head coach. “He gets them to play hard, and they play good volleyball.”
The Jaspers take on the Saints at 6 p.m., then host the Red Foxes on Saturday at 4 p.m.
Edited by Nate Shoemaker
Graphic and Photo by Quinn Difiore
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