SBU Sports: Volleyball wins five-set thriller over Charleston Cougars

The Stony Brook University volleyball team concluded play against Charleston with a weekend split, defeating the Cougars in a five-set thriller on Oct. 5 at home in Pritchard Gymnasium.

In the third set, Torri Henry became the third student-athlete in program history to record 4,000 assists for their career. She is behind leader Sarah Boeckel with 4,949, followed by Julie Zub tallying 4,926.

The Seawolves were led by a double-double from Leoni Kunz, who registered 14 kills and 17 digs on the day. Kali Moore also added 26 kills to help the attack. On the defensive end, Julia Patsos chipped in for with 22 digs to go with six blocks from Mercedes Motton.

SET 1 | The Seawolves grabbed control of the first set early and held the lead the rest of the way to win, 25-17. Stony Brook had a match-high .394 hitting with 16 kills through the opening frame, led by Moore with nine. A solid defensive performance from the front row blocked four Charleston attacks to help secure a first set victory.

SET 2 | Up 1-0, Stony Brook put themselves on the cusp of a sweep with a 28-26 victory in second set. The Seawolves came out on top of a tight second set, winning in a stanza that was tied six times and had four lead changes. The Seawolves racked up 19 kills over the course of the set, hitting .224.

SET 3 | Stony Brook couldn’t finish off the sweep, losing the third set in a back-and-forth battle. Neither the Seawolves or Cougars had a lead of more than two points in a set that featured four lead changes and nine ties.

 SET 4 | Stony Brook then dropped their second straight set 25-22 to bring the match level. The Cougars had their best performance of the day hitting .354 with 19 kills. The Seawolves had 15 kills of their own with four from Quinn Anderson who tied her career-high 15 on the day.

SET 5 | The Seawolves scored first and never trailed in the deciding set to secure the victory. Stony Brook opened up as much as a six-point lead at 11-5 before finishing off the match. Stony Brook also supplemented their offense with three aces in the final set, led by Madison Cigna.  

“Every CAA match is going to be a battle, and our team showed incredible toughness today. We were disciplined from the start and mentally strong enough to make adjustments as needed and not get too high or low emotionally. Proud of our team for gutting this one out,” noted head coach Kristin Belzung.