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Miller, Saints volleyball team rally past Bears on “Dig Pink” night

Posted 10/5/11

Senior co-captain Nyasha Miller recorded 28 kills to lead the St. Lawrence University volleyball team to a thrilling 3-2 come-from-behind victory over Potsdam State in front of a crowd of pink on …

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Miller, Saints volleyball team rally past Bears on “Dig Pink” night

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Senior co-captain Nyasha Miller recorded 28 kills to lead the St. Lawrence University volleyball team to a thrilling 3-2 come-from-behind victory over Potsdam State in front of a crowd of pink on Tuesday night in the Burkman Gymnasium. Miller, who finished with a .368 hitting percentage, now owns the University volleyball record for most kills in a single match.

The Saints, who faced a 2-0 deficit heading into the third set, rallied to victory by the scores of 23-25, 22-25, 25-16, 25-19, 15-10. St. Lawrence improves to 15-8 overall, while Potsdam falls to 13-9 on the season. "Coming off a great conference weekend I think the fact that we weren't playing a Liberty League match got to us a bit," said St. Lawrence Head Coach Shelly Roiger. "Tonight I thought our energy was very poor in the first couple of sets and when we play flat, we are a pretty average team. When we play hard and inspired, I like our chances. We knew we were going to see a much better Potsdam team this time than we did in September and luckily we were able to turn things around just in time to pull out the win in front of our home crowd."

"Nyasha may have played the best match of her career tonight," added Coach Roiger, "and Katherine Pierce's ability to precisely read the Potsdam hitters led to a lot of in-system play for us. It was a nice way for our seniors to finish their regular season career in Burkman Gymnasium."

Pierce led the Saints defense with 32 digs, while Miller added 23. First-year student Jenna Street and sophomore Katie Prue also recorded double-figure digs. Helping lead the offense were seniors Marta Johann, Liz Grogan, and Ali Limoncelli, who combined to finish with 21 kills and nine assisted blocks. First-year student Katy Litka added eight kills, three of them coming in the final set.

In the first set, neither team able to gain a sizeable advantage until the Saints gained their largest lead at 19-14. However, Potsdam's Allison Metot and Sam Strader led the Bears on an 11-4 run to sneak past the Saints and take the first set by the score of 25-23.

The second set told a similar story, as St. Lawrence built a 12-9 advantage on the serving of Prue. Potsdam went on another run to take the lead at 16-13. The Saints responded with a run of their own led by Miller to bring the score to 18-16 in favor of the home team. The Bears would, once again, post a comeback with the help of unforced Saint errors and close out the match by the score of 25-22.

The third set was back and forth in the beginning until the Saints went on an 11-0 run behind the service of Prue and the hitting of Miller to bring the score to 22-12. Though Potsdam would gather a few more points, St. Lawrence had solid kills from senior front line to take the third set 25-16.

The two teams exchanged point-for-point in the beginning of the fourth, until Potsdam was able to build a 12-8 lead behind two big blocks by Strader and Anna Fildes, along with the service of Jenna Blujus. The Saints were able to tie the set at 11-11 with back-to-back kills from Litka and Miller, topped by another service ace by Prue. Miller continued to lead the Saints, with the help of senior Ali Limoncelli and Grogan, on a 9-1 run to bring the score to 23-16 in favor of the home team. Though Blujus made a heads up plays to bring the score to 24-19, Johann ended the set with decisive kill to force a fifth.

The Scarlet and Brown came out firing in the fifth set and built a 14-7 lead behind the play of Litka and Street. A Saint service error, a kill by Potsdam's Dakota Pruiss, and a service ace by Blujus brought the score to 14-10, but a serve into the net ended the game with the Saints on top 15-10.

The Saints will travel to Dallas, TX for mid-semester break to take on four teams from the area. They open up play down south against Dallas Christian College on Oct. 14 at 3:30 pm.