The Emory volleyball team opened play at the Trinity Invitational in San Antonio with five-set wins over a pair of top-six ranked teams.
The No. 5-ranked Eagles dropped the first two sets vs. No. 6 Cal Lutheran before storming back to win the next three to claim a 21-25, 22-25, 25-17, 25-22, 15-10 triumph. After winning the third game, Emory found itself trailing by 16-10 and 18-15 counts in the fourth set before rallying to knot the match. It marked just the 11th time in program history that an Emory team had rallied from a 0-2 deficit to post a win. Alex Duhl led the offensive attack, hitting .433 on the strength of 16 kills with just three errors in 30 attempts. Breanah Bourque added 14 successful attack attempts while registering four blocks.
In the day’s finale against CNU, Bourque, Duhl and Kate Bowman all dialed up 12 kills in helping the Eagles’ boost their record to 10-1. Playing their fourth five-set match of the young season, Emory used a 6-0 spurt, keyed by terminations by Bourque, Cat McGrath and Bowman to claim a 9-4 edge. After the Captains battled back to knot the score at 12-12, Emory accounted for the match’s final three points with Duhl coming up with a kill along with a block assist in that stretch.
Senior Breanah Bourque was the lone Emory representative to earn a spot on the Trinity Invitational All-Tournament Team, playing in all 20 of the team's sets over four matches and posting a team-high hitting percentage .347 (55-14--118) along with a squad-best 0.65 blocks-per-set average.