Volleyball team secures victory over NEC foe SFNY
RMU Volleyball played in the Blue/Gold Invitational in Toledo, Ohio this weekend
After falling to Sacred Heart in Fairfield, Connecticut in its last match, the Robert Morris women’s volleyball team showed off their skills on the court with an impressive 3-1 bounce-back win over the St. Francis Brooklyn.
“We’re a great team, and winning this match can only make us better,” said head coach Dale Starr. “Our defense came through in the third and the fourth match, and the offense just kept on rolling. We’re a good team with a lot of potential and we plan to build off that.”
RMU came into the match with a dismal 1-15 record, but it certainly did not look that way, as they held their own against a strong SFNY offense.
The Colonials and Terriers were both evenly matched going into the contest, and it was evident early on, as both programs went back and forth for the first two sets.
But it was RMU’s defense that ultimately secured the victory.
Led by a stringent defense, the Colonials took the lead in the second set and never looked back.
“We had a bit of a struggle in the first set, but we came back and got [them],” junior Sydney Sizemore said. “It was a hard fought game.”
Starr brings a variety of collegiate coaching experience to the club, having coached at both McNeese State University for six years and Mississippi University for four seasons.
In 2012, he led a senior packed RMU team to its fourteenth consecutive Northeast Conference tournament, the league’s longest active streak.
This season however, is the exact opposite.
Since last year’s seniors graduated, the team has gone from a veteran squad to a young and inexperienced team with eleven underclassmen and five juniors.
“We’re a young team, and obviously we look to the returning juniors, such as Sydney Sizemore and Becky Jay, for leadership,” the fourth year skipper said. “But some of the freshmen are making big plays, and we have to keep it up if we want to go far this season.”
With a monumental victory over the SFNY, the Colonials look to carry the positive momentum into Sunday’s contest when they face the LIU-Brooklyn Blackbirds at the Charles L. Sewall Center at 1 p.m.
