WEST HAVEN, Conn. - The Daemen College women's volleyball team dropped a pair of matches and fell to 1-5 on the season today while participating in the University of New Haven Charger Invitational. The Wildcats opened tournament action with a 3-2 loss to the host Chargers (26-24,25-12,21-25,16-25,11-15) and followed that with a close defeat to the Post University Eagles (24-26,22-25,23-25). The Chargers added two wins on the day, making their record an ever 3-3 overall. Post fell to New Haven earlier in the day, making them 4-3 overall. 

New Haven was sluggish during the first two sets of the match due to a five-set match against Post. The first game was very back-and-forth, as each team had their own set of short runs. After closing the gap to 9-8, Daemen dropped four points to fall behind 13-8. After six Charger errors and a service ace by junior Amber Dryzmala (West Seneca, N.Y./St. Mary's of Lancaster), Daemen closed the gap to one. The Wildcats took advantage of Charger errors and came out on top to end the first.

Daemen was much more demanding in the second game, as they started out by winning five of the first six points. Their offense was solid as five different Wildcats put up at least one kill. Ashley Drzymala (West Seneca, N.Y./St. Mary's of Lancaster) put down three consecutive aces to put the Wildcats up with a comfortable nine-point advantage. Those aces were followed with a six-point run which put Daemen up 20-9 to widen the gap.

The Wildcats committed several errors, which set them back in the third set.The Chargers jumped to a 14-9 lead before scoring six of the final eight points to end the set.

Amber Drzymala was a key factor for Daemen as she contributed 13 kills, 18 digs and an ace against the Chargers. Katie McKrell (Webster, N.Y./Webster Schroeder) led the Wildcats with 37 assists.

The Chargers were led by Kristen Lee who had 11 digs, eight kills and three blocks. They had six kills over Daemen to instill a win.

The Wildcats next match against The Eagles, was even more demanding as each set was lost by three or less points in both teams' final match of the day. The Wildcats came out strong by winning eight of the first ten points in the first set, but allowed Post to go on an eight-point run shortly thereafter. Again, Daemen was competitive in the beginning of the second game by winning 10 of the first 18 points. Ashley Drzymala and McKrell played especially well together. Drzymala earned 15 kills, two blocks and five digs while McKrell tallied 34 assists. Kailey Balloy (Eden, N.Y./Eden) was monumental on defense as she recorded 13 digs.

The highlight of the day was when Ye Wang earned her 1,000th career kill as a Wildcat with a huge spike against Post. The final point came after Amber Drzymala made a smooth pass to McKrell who then sent a quick set to Wang to struck the ball straight down. She finished the day with exactly 1,000 kills for her career. Wang is a redshirt-senior from Beijing, China who is majoring in Accounting. Wang is the first Daemen player to reach this milestone since Lindsey Nowak (West Seneca, N.Y./Immaculata) did so in her during her senior season last year.

Daemen continues tournament play on Saturday with matches against Assumption College at 10 a.m. before finishing their stay at West Haven by competing against Georgian Court University at 12 p.m.