SAU volleyball swept by Fayetteville State

LAURINBURG —The St. Andrews Knights women’s volleyball team was swept at home by the Fayetteville State Broncos on Tuesday night. It was the second home game of the season for St. Andrews, who fell to 0-6 overall with the loss while Fayetteville State improves to 1-0 with the win.

The first set was initially a back-and-forth affair that never saw any team really build a big advantage. It was one big run by the Broncos that ultimately the difference as they got nine unanswered points after the set was tied at 13 to go up 22-13. The set ended up in Fayetteville’s favor 25-16, which perhaps is not entirely indicative of the competitiveness throughout.

The second set was the best of the night for St. Andrews. They got up early 4-1 thanks to four unanswered points and also held notable leads later on at 9-5 at 13-10. Unfortunately for the Knights, they would run out of gas toward the end of the set as Fayetteville went on a 10-1 run to retake control and eventually win the set 25-21, though St. Andrews would get four more unanswered points after falling behind 23-16 to make it interesting toward the end. Head Coach Alejandro Escobar credited the momentum the Knights accumulated to getting comfortable in the system he’s attempting to install as well as some energy provided from other teams at St. Andrews being at the game.

“We were able to finally put everything that we’ve been working on together over preseason,” Escobar said. “We struggled a little bit to figure it out as a group and we didn’t have the most amount of time to grasp the concepts we’re trying to have here for this new brand of St. Andrews volleyball. We finally had the opportunity to do it tonight and a spark from the other athletic teams that were here, which really gave them confidence to do what they needed to do.”

The final set was one that simply got away from the Knights early. After a 2-2 tie, the Broncos got four points in a row to go up 6-2, then further extended their lead with a separate 6-0 run that had them up by eight at 13-5. St. Andrews did make a charge toward the end to get it within two at 19-17 but couldn’t do much beyond that, eventually falling 25-19 in the last set of the evening.

Sophomore Jade Alvarez paced the team in kills with eight while senior Bailey Zivitski contributed a team leading 13 digs. Sophomore Mercedes Portalatin had 13 assists to lead the Knights, who registered seven block assists as a team but also committed eight errors during the game.

Going forward, Escobar is excited about the speed they have. With a very young team, they are playing with a lot of energy and enthusiasm, which he believes will continue to help them adapt to the college game.

“We are playing a lot faster than other teams and I think it’s helping them adapt faster as players,” Escobar said. “Now that they know that we are one of the more up-tempo teams not just in the conference but in all of the NAIA, it provides a new light to what they can do.”

The Knights will have over a week off before beginning a slate of five conference games in a row over an eight-day period with four being on the road. They will start that stretch by traveling to Montreat College on Friday, Sept. 13. and then to Brenau University the following day (Saturday, Sept. 14). They will finally return home on Tuesday, Sept. 17 against Columbia College.