Lehigh University Athletics
Lehigh hits the road for James Madison Invitational
9/1/2011 9:15:00 PM | Volleyball
BETHLEHEM, Pa. – The Lehigh Volleyball team will look to use the momentum from Wednesday night's season-opening victory when it travels to Virginia for three games in two days at the James Madison Invitational. The Mountain Hawks will take on host James Madison on Friday at 7:30 p.m. followed by Robert Morris on Saturday at 10:00 a.m. and Costal Carolina at 5:00 p.m.
Lehigh is coming off a 3-0 (25-21, 25-18, 30-28) win against Rider in which the Mountain Hawks were led by senior Angelika Kopacz who had 14 kills and 15 digs while sophomores Amanda Clark and Courtney McCutchan added nine and eight kills, respectively. Sophomore libero Rachel Charles had 20 digs.
In an exciting, deciding third set, Lehigh fought off four straight match points before senior Jessica Kudirka - whose 37 assists were seven more than Rider had combined - was on the other side of things when she put away her third kill of the match for the final point.
"That end was definitely one of the highlights of the match," said Bertucci. "The girls never gave up and that's really important. They made some smart plays and just found a way to win."
Friday's match will be the seventh meeting between the two schools with James Madison holding the edge 6-1. Lehigh competed in the JMU Invitational last year where they won two of its three matches. The Mountain Hawks lone loss in the tournament came at the hands of host James Madison 3-0 but every set was close 25-21, 25-21 and 25-22. Charles and Taylor Poole were named to the All-Tournament Team.
James Madison is 1-2 on the year after playing in the Country Inn and Suites Volleyball Classic last weekend where they dropped decisions to Green Bay and Dayton and picked up a win over North Dakota. The Dukes are led by sophomores Kelly Maguire and Katie Daorai who lead the team in kills per set (2.15) and digs per set (3.38), respectively.
This will be the first of three tournaments Lehigh participates in this season. On September 9th and 10th, the Mountain Hawks will play in the Long Island Invitational and then they will host the Lehigh/Lafayette Invitational at Leeman-Turner Arena on September 16th and 17th.
If the Mountain Hawks are going to have success this weekend, Bertucci knows his team has to raise its level of play. But with three games in two days, they will have to do so during game-action.
"Unfortunately we don't have time to actually get out there on the practice court and go over things," said Bertucci. "We will have to kind of work on things on the fly and hopefully we can get some things sorted out by the end of the weekend. We have to be in system when we are playing and be able to control the ball better which we didn't do in our first game."
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