A season of struggles continued for the Binghamton University volleyball team on Sunday with a loss to America East powerhouse University at Albany in three straight sets (25-16, 25-17, 25-15).
The match against Albany (13-8, 6-1 AE) kicked off the second half of regular season conference play for the Bearcats (10-15, 2-5 AE), who sunk to 2-5 on the year in AE play with only five conference matches remaining.
“Albany is just a solid team, they’ve been a perennial power in the conference for a number of years and their experience really showed [Sunday],” BU head coach Glenn Kiriyama said. “We’ve got a pretty young team, and again, unfortunate errors hurt us quite a bit playing against a team like Albany. It was a tough match. Albany was just better and just executed a lot better than we did.”
In the opening set, the conference-leading Great Danes jumped ahead to a quick 9-3 lead, forcing Kiriyama to call an early timeout. When play resumed, the Bearcats embarked on a four-point run to cut Albany’s lead to two.
Binghamton fought to keep the score tight for much of the set, but failed to take the lead. Albany would catch fire at the end of the set, going on a 7-2 run to seal a 25-16 opening-set win.
The second set again saw even play from both teams, with the Bearcats battling to keep up with the pace of the Great Danes. But with the score tied at nine, Albany would make its move to break away. The Great Danes took off on a 9-3 run to pull ahead 18-12, and the Bearcats proved unable to erase the deficit.
Down 23-13, BU staged a final attempt at a comeback, as kills from sophomore middle hitter Grace Vickers and freshman outside hitter Kristin Hovie powered a four-point run by the Bearcats. The effort would fall short, however, as back-to-back kills by the Great Danes ended the set in Albany’s favor, 25-17.
The Great Danes jumped out to an early 4-1 lead in the third set, but a kill from Vickers quickly put an end to Albany’s fast start and ignited a four-point run for BU that tied the game at five.
Albany would soon retaliate, though, garnering six straight points to pull ahead 12-6.
A kill from BU freshman outside hitter Annelot Nieuwenhuis and an ace from senior Julie Chambers worked to shrink the deficit to four, but Albany continued to pick up speed. The Great Danes dominated the second half of the set, surging to a 25-15 finish to seal the sweep, 3-0.
The Bearcat offense was led by a pair of rookies in Nieuwenhuis and Hovie, who collected nine kills apiece on the day. Vickers and junior middle blocker Alex Roland also contributed seven kills each.
Freshman Amanda Dettmann led the squad with 29 assists, while sophomore libero Xiomara Ortiz tallied a team-high 11 digs. Freshman Emily Litwin notched 10 digs of her own.
The Bearcats remained without freshman middle hitter Jordan Snapp and junior outside hitter Iva Partaleva, who were both sidelined with injuries.
With the loss on Sunday, the Bearcats now sit in a three-way tie for fourth place in the America East. Kiriyama stressed the weight that the remaining matches will have on Binghamton’s fate.
Kiriyama said that the two matches his team faces this weekend against Stony Brook University and University of Maryland, Baltimore County will be critical to the team’s success this year.
“We’re still fighting,” Kiriyama said. “We want to make the playoffs and these next few matches — we don’t have many of them left — will be important, especially this weekend, playing Stony Brook and [UMBC]. So, we’ll see, we’ve just got to take it one game at a time.”
Binghamton is set to resume play on Friday against Stony Brook in the West Gym. First serve is set for 7 p.m.