The No. 13 ranked Emory University volleyball team held on to win a five-set thriller over No. 15 ranked Berry College 25-23, 25-15, 14-25, 24-26, 15-11 Tuesday night in Rome, GA. The Eagles hand the Vikings their second loss of the season to drop to 15-2 while Emory improves to 15-3.
An evenly spread-out attack helped power the Eagles to their ninth win in their last 10 games with senior Tara Martin and freshman Lily Martin leading the charge with 12 and 11 kills, respectively. Behind them were sophomore Carly Wallace and freshmen Madison Cail and Alana Dawson with nine terminations each as the quintet combined for 50 of the team's 57 kills. On the night, the Eagles were out hit .212 (65-27—179) to .192 (57-24—172) but took advantage of 11 Berry service errors. Junior Cassie Srb had 46 assists in the outing, her third-highest total of the season.
After trailing for most of the first set, Emory recorded six straight points out of a timeout at 19-16, seizing the lead at 20-19 and going up as many as three at 22-19 en route to winning the set 25-23. In the second set, it was all Emory as the Eagles continued the momentum by jumping out to a 6-1 start and led by as many as 10 at 21-11 before grabbing a 2-0 set advantage with a 25-15 win in the second frame.
Berry did not go quietly as it claimed the first three points of the third set and jumped out to an 11-4 edge. Emory won three of the next four serves to make it 12-7 but a 9-3 run by the home team made it 21-10 in favor of the Vikings. Following a time out, the Eagles secured three straight points but Berry closed out the set with four of the final five points to win 25-14.
The Eagles were the early aggressors in the fourth stanza, leading 5-1 in the early goings. The Vikings did not lay down, tying the set at 6-6. Emory remained in control as the team went on an 8-4 burst to move in front 14-10 however the Vikings rallied with a 4-1 spurt to tie the score once again at 15. With the score tied at 23 coming out of a break, the Vikings claimed the lead on an Emory attacking error. A kill by Wallace knotted the score at 24 but back-to-back terminations by Berry's Olivia Mallow clinched the set for the Vikings.
Things looked dire for the Eagles as the fifth set began with the Vikings jumping out to a 4-0 edge. But the Eagles clawed back to get within 9-7 before three straight points thanks to a service error and back-to-back kills from T. Martin and Cail gave Emory the lead at 10-9, forcing Berry to call a timeout.
Following the break, an attacking error evened the score at 10 but another kill by T. Martin and a Berry attacking error gave the Eagles life at 12-10. The Vikings got a break with an attacking error from the Eagles to make it 12-11 but T. Martin helped clinch the match with kills on two of the next three rallies including the clincher to give the Eagles the win over their in-state rival.
Next up for Emory will be the UAA Round Robin III at the Woodruff PE Center on Sunday, October 17th. The Eagles will host all eight conference schools in the third and final round robin of the year and will take on Rochester and Chicago on Sunday to close out the UAA slate.