NEW BRITAIN, Conn.— The LIU Brooklyn volleyball team closed out its regular season slate with a 3-1 (22-25, 21-25, 25-21, 18-25) loss to CCSU on Saturday afternoon. The Blackbirds end the regular season 15-8, 12-2 in the Northeast Conference and will host next weekend's NEC Tournament at the Steinberg Center.
Junior Filippa Hansson led LIU with 10 kills and .474 hitting percentage in the match. Seniors Alex Lilliquist and Viktoria Fink recorded nine kills each. Junior Amanda Hubbard tallied 29 assists and sophomore Piper Matsumoto added 19 assists. Junior Natalia Rivera registered 21 digs and Lilliquist contributed 10 digs. Freshman Myrthe Maring led the team with six total blocks.
Fresh off Friday night's five-set win over Bryant, the Blackbirds started out strong with a 11-6 opening favor paced by five kills from Fink. The lead would hold till the halfway point in the set as the Blue Devils used a 7-2 run to tie it up at 17-17. Both teams continued to swap points as the match went to a 22-22 standstill. It was the home team who would find the last run, picking up three straight points for the 25-22 set win.
CCSU carried that over into the second set with an 8-5 starting stretch. The Blackbirds responded with a three-point run on a kill from Schaberl along with a big block assists from the junior and classmate Katharina Krepper to tie it up at 8-8. The back-and-forth frenzy would ensue as both teams took shots at the lead on the way to a 14-14 stalemate. The Blue Devils put together a 6-1 run to take the lead 20-15. LIU didn't retreat, using a four-point run on kills from Julia Azevedo and Matsumoto along with a block from Krepper to get to within one point at 20-19. CCSU would take the last run once again with a 5-2 closing stretch for the 25-21 set win.
The third set opened with a 10-10 deadlock as the Blackbirds looked to rally. CCSU would break through with a 4-1 run to take at 14-11 lead. LIU hung around tying up the set at 17-17 on a kill from Lilliquist. That sparked a 9-4 closing stretch for the Blackbirds that saw kills from Maring, junior Emily Magee and a kill from Krepper to seal the 25-21 set win.
The Blue Devils responded to open the fourth and final set with an 8-3 advantage. The Blackbirds recorded a 10-3 run paced by three kills from Lilliquist to tie the set up 10-10. CCSU then grabbed nine out of the next 11 points to take the lead 19-12. LIU took advantage of a few Blue Devils errors late but the home team walked away with a 25-18 set win to close out its senior day.
UP NEXT
The Blackbirds will host the 2018 Northeast Conference Women's Volleyball Tournament next weekend, November 16-17 at the Steinberg Center. Game times and tournament field are still to be announced by the conference.