The GW volleyball team finished off a successful road trip with a 3-2 win over host Fordham Sunday. The win was the Colonials’ second consecutive five-game victory and came on the heels of a 3-2 win at Rhode Island Saturday, giving the Colonials their first back-to-back victories since they beat Dayton and La Salle three weeks ago.
Sunday’s game cemented middle hitter Britta Stroman’s comeback, as the junior added 13 kills while hitting .414. Stroman, who had shoulder surgery last spring, has played limited minutes since the beginning of the season.
Co-captains junior Sarah Hokom and junior Ruth Lazzari, two players who have stepped up in Stroman’s absence, continued their impressive contributions, each adding 20 kills and 21 digs. Lazzari hit .280 and Hokom, who also added four blocks, hit .190. They were instrumental in helping the Colonials (13-9, 4-3 Atlantic 10) escape a 3-1 loss by winning game four to force a decisive fifth game.
The Rams (7-15, 1-6 A-10) were successful on defense, out-blocking the Colonials 10-6. Fordham’s Mele Mist led her team with a match-high 22 digs but the Colonials’ offense made up the difference, combining for a .212 attack percentage to Fordham’s .191.
In addition to the consistency the team saw from Hokom and Lazzari, freshman Lindsay Vernand and junior co-captain Lauren Dunning stepped up. Vernand hit .279 with 17 kills in 43 attempts with only five errors while Dunning, the setter, assisted on 61 of GW’s 74 kills and added 17 digs.
Saturday, the Colonials won a five-game match 3-2 against a tough Rhode Island competitor. With the match tied 2-2, the Colonials pulled off a close game five win to take the match.
In the decisive fifth game Vernand and Hokom each had three kills to seal the 15-13 win and the match for the Colonials. The game was close until the end, with both teams hitting their best percentages of the day, a nearly identical .276 and .273 for Rhode Island and GW respectively.
After winning the first two games 30-27 and 30-22 the Colonials dropped the next two games 21-30 and 28-30. Over those two games the Colonials had their worst hitting percentages of the match, .125 and .100 respectively. In game four, Rhode Island notched a match-high 18 kills.
The Rams put up a tough defense, outblocking GW 15-7 and piling 20 more digs than the Colonials. But behind a strong offense led by Vernand and Hokom, the Colonials prevailed. Vernand had 24 kills, tying Rhode Island’s Kaleena Miller for a match high, and Hokom added 23. Vernand tallied a double double, adding 20 digs while Lazzari, with her match-high 29 digs, added her own double double.
The Colonials face their next two A-10 opponents at home, taking on Dayton on Friday, Oct. 25 and Xavier Oct. 26. GW split its previous meetings with the two Ohio opponents in two five-game matches earlier this season.
