Volleyball Upended by Long Island on the Road

Junior captain Amanda Bayer recorded team-bests of 21 assists and 14 digs, but Central Connecticut State University fell to Long Island 3-0 on the road on Saturday afternoon. Freshman Blaike King led the Blue Devils with seven kills in the defeat.

CCSU falls to 17-14 overall and 11-4 in the Northeast Conference, while LIU improves to 18-13 and is still undefeated in NEC play with a record of 15-0. The Blackbirds will have one remaining regular season conference game, taking on Bryant tomorrow at home. CCSU travels to St. Francis (NY) on Sunday to finish out the regular season slate.

Long Island tallied 10 blocks to CCSU's six. It marked only the fourth time this season that the Blue Devils recoreded less blocks than their opponent. They are 0-4 when being outblocked. Junior Tori Vaughan was responsible for five of them, tallying two solo and three assisted blocks. Vaughan now has 138 total blocks in 2009, the fifth best single-season block total in Central history. Senior captain Jamie Baumert holds the fourth spot, with 140 this season. Sophomore Sara DeLacey is the third Blue Devils with over 100 blocks. She tallied three in today's match, giving her 115 on the year.

King led CCSU with seven kills, while freshman Emily Cochran was second with five and Bayer, Baumert and DeLacey each chipped in with four. Junior Kaitlin Petrella recorded another 12 digs in the loss, giving her 505 for the season. Petrella has now recorded over 500 digs in a single season twice in her career. She set the Blue Devil single-season dig record in 2007 with 594.

Svetlana Simic and Martina Racic led the Blackbirds with 16 and 14 kills, respectively. Simic also recorded a match-best 20 digs, while Dunja Milin finished with 42 assists and eight digs. LIU's duo of Ashley Rice and Breanna Cullity each tallied five assisted blocks in the victory.