The Dig Pink volleyball game for breast cancer awareness (held at the Halton Arena at 7 pm on Friday night) brought the largest crowd the Niner volleyball team has seen all season. An arena of 1, 429 fans were decorated in pink as the Niners fought off Fordham and breast cancer, on Parents Weekend.
After scoring the first four points of the first set, the Niners allowed Fordham to go on a 4-0 run. Soon after, Fordham extended their lead to 12-6. Fordham conducted consecutive kills, until Charlotte’s Bianaca Rouse and Jenna Litoborski handed their kills back to the Fordham defense, who could not stop them.
Soon after. Fordham was put away by Kaitlin Knight, who already leads the A-10 with the highest percentage of service aces at 51. Knight did what she does best to put away an unbelievable four service aces in a row. The Niners finished off the first set with a 25-21 win.
The next set was a neck and neck battle throughout, until a 14-10 separation in which Charlotte took the lead. Four kills by Jenna Litoborski and three by Kara Raker set the Niners up for their second set win, 25-17.
After allowing Charlotte to jump out to a 4-1 lead in the third set, Fordham caught up 7-7 after a series of blocking kill attempts by Charlotte. After two more errors created by Charlotte,Charlotte called for a quick timeout to regroup.
Coming back stronger than ever, Kathleen Hicks scored a quick kill, Abbie Rees dove on the floor to save a ball from hitting the ground, and once sent over, an amazed Fordham allowed them to score.
With Charlotte trailing 10-12, and getting back to the neck and neck continuum of the game, the girls almost caught up at 11-12 after a kill by Kathleen Hicks, only to fall back to 11-13.
The final points of the set were exchanged back and forth, until Fordham caught another brief lead at 24-21. Charlotte called a timeout to try to prevent the last Fordham point and a possible set loss.
A block by Kara Raker got Charlotte to within two at 22-24, but a questionable in-bounds kill by Fordham sent the Niners into another set after a loss of 25-22.
Redding later stated that he was proud of the girls for not “losing their composure.”
Fordham scored the first point of the game, but Charlotte quickly fought back. A block by the Niners and a kill by Bianca Rouse gave the Niners a 3-1 lead. Blocked kills and communication errors by the Niners got Fordham back in the game at 4-6, even with angry attempted kills by Rouse and Raker.
Motivated, the girls fended off Fordham, as Rouse sents a kill that Fordham couldn’t send back. A service error by Sheri Davis gave Fordham hope, which Rouse quickly killed as she made the score 5-9.
When the team chemistry could not be found, Redding exchanged players to fit the mold. Still, the girls’ failure to communicate sent them behind, 11-16.
Rouse, who was sending kills their way for a while, scored a kill to up the score 12-16. Rouse ended up scoring six kills in the fourth set alone, which far surpassed her other teamates’ high of one for the fourth set. But when Fordham scored a quick point, 12-17, Charlotte called another timeout.
The timeout this time, threw Fordham off, and sent them aiming balls out of bounds. A never ending aggression by Rouse allowed her to score another kill, keeping the game close at 13-18.
After a great double block by Davis and Raker, the Niners still found themselves behind 21-14. Fordham however, seemed to keep sending them in lines of miscommunication, as their kills were continually sent in between two players.
At 15-23, the Niners were jittery; but jitters turned to adrenaline for Litoborski, leading her to a kill to make the score 16-23. A serve by Hicks, double block by Davis and Jennifer Webb, followed by a Fordham error allowed two more Niner points.
After a time out, two quick points by Fordham sent the Niners into a fifth and final set.
Entering the fifth set, the Niners were led in the attack by Bianca Rouse and Jenna Litoborski, who had 16 and 11 kills rspectively. Defensively, Kaitlin Knight and Kathleen Hicks led the team in digs; Knight with 14, and Hicks with 12.
Exchanging kills between two teams, the Niners found a lead of 5-3 in the beginning. A block by the Niners allowed them to jump to a lead of 6-3, and then 9-3.
Two kills by Kathleen Hicks, a kill by Sheri Davis, and a Charlotte block moved the Niner lead to 14-5, but a Fordham error pushed the Niner score to a 15-5 set and game win. Fordham had yet to score a single point for themselves while serving. All points they collected were off of Niner’s serving.
“It was a lot of fun.” head coach Chris Redding said. “We have been working really hard as a team on both raising money and preparing for the game against a team that beat us twice last year.”
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