Lehigh University
Lafayette
Lehigh splits season series with archrival Lafayette
10/31/2008 12:00:00 AM | Volleyball
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The loss drops Lehigh to a tie for sixth place with Navy in the Patriot League standings, and delivers a blow to the Mountain Hawks’ postseason hopes.
“Now we have to refocus and establish new goals,” Lehigh head coach Jenny Maurer said. “We have to re-evaluate what we want to do now.”
The Mountain Hawks jumped out to the lead in the opening set on Friday night, battling through a tough 25-23 win. However,
“I think both teams were playing equally aggressive in that first set,” Maurer said. “After that, they really didn’t do anything special. They just kept pressuring us and attacking us.”
Angelika Kopacz led the way for the Brown and White with 14 kills on 33 attacks. The freshman also added seven digs, tying Jessica Kudirka for second place on the team, and trailing Emma Melendez for the team lead.
Maxie McCoy put up another solid night hitting from the floor, registering 11 kills on 20 attacks. The junior only made three errors in the match for a team-high .400 hitting percentage.
“Maxie played a heck of a game for us tonight,” Maurer said. “We also got a lot of good defense from Emily Flanagan, who got up and made some blocks (two) and some digs (two).”
The Mountain Hawks maintain a 41-28 lead in the 69 matches between the two archrival schools. Each team held serve at home in 2008, for a 1-1 split in the season series, but Maurer said the .500 record was not what Lehigh was looking for heading into this match.
“I’m disappointed because we should have played better,” Maurer said. “Our serve and receive could have been better. We made 10 receiving errors tonight, which is very uncharacteristic for us.”
Lehigh returns to action on Friday, Nov. 7 when it hosts American at Leeman-Turner arena at 7 p.m. Live coverage of the match can be seen on Lehighsports.com.
