Box Score AMHERST, N.Y. - The elusive 150th victory in the career of head coach
Mark Parisi finally came to fruition today as the Daemen College women's volleyball team broke into the win column for the first time this season, downing Mercy College three sets to none (26-24, 25-21, 25-22) in an East Coast Conference match at Lumsden Gymnasium this morning. With the win, Daemen improves to 1-14 overall, finally getting off the proverbial schnide, as well as upping its ECC mark to 1-3. Meanwhile, Mercy drops to 3-10 overall and 0-4 in the league.
A tightly contested first set established the tone for a close match throughout. Neither team scored more than three consecutive points in the opening set until Mercy used a 4-0 spurt to establish a 21-17 lead. Daemen battled back and made it a one-point deficit (22-21) with back-to-back kills by
Jakki Steck (Depew, N.Y./St. Mary's of Lancaster) and
Amber Drzymala (West Seneca, N.Y./St. Mary's of Lancaster). Mercy took two of the next three points to put themselves on the brink of taking a 1-0 lead in sets before Daemen rallied for four straight points, taking the set 26-24. The Wildcats got kills from
Lindsey Nowak (West Seneca, N.Y./Immaculata) and
Mackenzie Knihinicki (Lakeview, N.Y./Frontier) in the spurt which was capped by a service ace from senior
Chelsea Turcer (Alexander, N.Y./Alexander Central).
In set two, Daemen battled back from an early 9-5 Mercy lead, using a 10-3 spurt to go ahead 15-12. The teams traded points until Daemen went on a quick 4-0 spurt to turn a 19-16 advantage into an insurmountable seven-point bulge (23-16). Mercy got within three (24-21) but another Nowak kill closed out the set for the Wildcats.
The third set went back and forth early on, similar to the first, until Daemen jumped ahead 13-10 with four straight points. Steck, Drzymala and sophomore
Allie Witkoski (Rochester, N.Y./Greece Arcadia) all had kills while freshman
Alicia Contreras (Arcadia, Calif./Arcadia) had a service ace in a 4-0 run for the Wildcats which turned a one-point deficit (10-9) into a modest three-point lead.
Mercy would not go quietly though, winning six of the next eight points to go back ahead by one (16-15) before two attack errors and a service error gave the lead back to Daemen (18-16). Mercy battled back again, winning three straight points, including back-to-back kills by Sa'Naya Johnson to tie things up at 21-all. From there, it was all Daemen as the Wildcats won four of the next five points to close out the set and the match. Two kills from Steck and one each from Knihinicki and Drzymala did the deed with Drzymala's ending the match.
Freshman
Jenna Reeser (Amherst, N.Y./Sweet Home) led the way for Daemen offensively with 12 kills while Nowak and Drzymala split 20 kills between them. Nowak and Reeser were dominant at times, especially early on for the senior Nowak who notched half of her match kill total in the opening set.
Freshman
Katie McKrell (Webster, N.Y./Webster Schroeder) contributed 21 assists while Witkoski tossed in 12.
Defensively, Drzymala led with 11 digs and Reeser notched 10, giving both double-doubles in the match.
Mercy was paced by the kills of Brenna White and the 21 assists of McKenna Ronan.
Parisi, who is in his 10th season at the helm after being hired midway through the 2004 season, entered the season with 149 victories to his name and has now led Daemen to a record of 150-166, which includes the program's three straight 20-win seasons coming into 2014.
Daemen looks to make it two in a row when they travel down I-90 to face Le Moyne College in a non-conference matchup in Syracuse this Wednesday, Oct. 1.
