Sports
Late Comeback Sparks First Win For Fontbonne Volleyball
The Ducks engineered an impressive comeback after going down 2-0.
The girls volleyball team picked a heck of a way to grab its first win of the season and first varsity win for head coach Kathleen McCarthy.
The host Ducks stormed back from two games down to trip up Archbishop Williams, 3-2 (14-25, 21-25, 27-25, 25-17, 20-18), last night.
Jen Gemma came alive in the third set and finished with 25 kills, 25 blocks and three aces. Rachel Selbert passed out an impressive 40 assists and the left-handed hitting Colleen MacDonald swatted 14 kills for the Ducks.
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The Ducks came within a few points of defeat in the third game after dropping the first two games of the match. Gemma’s block of a Lady Bishops frontcourt player gave the Ducks a 26-25 lead. MacDonald served the game-winner to notch a 27-25 win and completely change the momentum of the match.
“The first two games were a lot different than the last three, because we weren’t getting our serves in, we weren’t passing the ball and we weren’t playing like the team that I’ve seen in practice,” said McCarthy.
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Part of the turnaround was getting Gemma established towards the front of the net as she collected a handful of kills early in the third game and started to dominate on the defensive end.
“You can tell that she is starting to become more competitive,” McCarthy said of her budding junior star. “She was getting that fight in her eye and basically every time she hit the ball in that game she got a point.”
The fourth game featured four times until the Ducks pulled away after things were notched up at 11. The Ducks scored 14 of the next 20 points in the game, and MacDonald’s kill sent the match to a deciding fifth game.
The Ducks and Bishops traded points throughout the final game and they needed extra points to get a decision. The Bishops were serving for the match with the score 18-17, but Gemma put away a big kill after the Bishops prematurely celebrated the win. Gemma sealed the game with two more kills to give the Ducks the final three points of the game and a 20-18 victory.
