HAWKS SLIP BY THE EAGLES

In a tightly contested match this past Saturday, the Eagles of CSE fell to the Red Hawks of Montclair State 3-1 (15-25, 25-21, 21-25 and 17-25).

The Eagles had an 9-6 lead early on and the team serve receive and transition offense seemed to be quite productive.  The only negative was the serving game that had yielded 2 errors. But just as the Eagles seemingly had control of the set,  the Hawks went on a 5-0 run that saw CSE give up 3 straight aces.  Although the team settled down and stayed within striking distance at 11-13,  the Eagles continued to sputter and after a blocking error and a couple of more service errors, CSE found themselves in a 22-15 hole.  The team could not find their game again and ended the set giving up 2 more aces and adding yet another attacking error.

The Eagles regrouped for set 2 as both teams traded points not being able to string anything together. The Eagles however were not committing any of the passing and serving errors as in set 1 which led them to a 12-12 score midway through the match.  CSE then went on a 5-0 run thanks to serving of Jenae Goodson (2 Aces) that kept the Hawks out of system and incapable of getting any good attacks.  The Eagles kept the pressure on for the rest of the set,  holding on to their 4-5 point lead.  The Eagle offense was outstanding down the stretch hitting for 4 kills in crucial points to take the set 25-21.

The third set saw the Hawks holding a slight lead early on (8-6) that the Eagles could not seem to break through well into the middle part of the match (14-12).  At 15-13, some well intentioned and good strategic attacks did not yield the result CSE wanted and MSU scored 3 more times to extend their lead to 19-14 before it was over.  With their backs against the wall,  the Eagles kept trying to fight back and but key attack errors all but sealed their fate in the set as they trailed the Hawks 23-18 late in the set.  The Eagles went on a 3-1 run that saw CSE get to within 3 at 24-21 and, with the ball in their hands,  the Eagles just could not regain momentum and fell 25-21 to the Red Hawks.

The Eagles could not recover emotionally from the 3rd set loss and were too over-agressive early on which led to a quick, early lead for the Hawks at 4-1.  The Eagles settled down but were unable to cut the deficit and actually saw the Hawks extend the lead to 11-4 thanks to 4 more unforced errors by the Eagles.  CSE cleaned up their act in the middle stages of the match and went on a 6-4 run that had them within 4 at 14-10 but a few points later, 3 consecutive hitting errors pushed the lead up to 8 at 19-11 and the writing was on the wall.  CSE, to its credit, refused to give up and went on 6-2 run that saw the Eagles get within 4 at 21-17 but another service error broke the momentum and led to a 4-0 run by the Hawks that featured another 2 hitting errors by the Eagles.

Although the Eagles hit for 10 kills in the set,  they also had a match high 8 errors which made it the least efficient set of the match for the team.  In contrast, the Hawks had only 8 kills but gave up only 4 errors.

The Eagles record now stands at 13W - 14L.