Volleyball Falls to Seton Hall in JMU Classic Finale

Saturday, August 25

Harrisonburg, Va.

7:30 PM

James Madison University

1-2

Seton Hall

2-0

Seton Hall

James Madison

8/26/2012 1:37:00 AM | Volleyball

Box Score

HARRISONBURG, Va., Aug. 25, 2012 – Senior outside hitters Danielle Erb (Tampa, Fla./Plant) and Natalie Abel (Washington, Pa./Trinity) each reached major career milestones, but Seton Hall rallied for to take a 3-1 decision over the James Madison volleyball team at Sinclair Gymnasium/Godwin Hall on Saturday.

SHU won by set scores of 21-25, 25-21, 25-21, 25-19 to improve to 2-0 on the season. JMU dropped both of its matches to open its season at 1-2 overall.

“You know we lost, but I don't consider it a tough day at all,” Head Volleyball Coach Lauren Steinbrecher said. “I thought we fought hard, especially playing without three starters this evening. Sometimes you just have to rally around that and overall we played some good competition today.”

Erb became the 10th player in school history to surpass 1,000 career kills while Abel became the eighth player to reach 1,000 career digs. Both players finished with doubles-doubles to pace the Dukes on Saturday night. Abel had a match-high 21 kills on .220 hitting and added 13 digs, two assists and an ace. Erb picked up 14 kills on .205 hitting. She chipped in 11 digs and three blocks.

Also reaching the double digit kill mark were senior middle blocker Lizzy Briones (Siloam Springs, Ark./Siloam Springs) and freshman outside hitter Meghan Niski (St. Charles, Ill./St. Charles East) with 10 each. Briones had a team-high four blocks while Niski finished with a double-double with a team-best 14 digs. Senior setter Megan Wiechmann (Sunland, Calif./Village Christian) added 53 assists, 11 digs and three blocks while freshman libero MacKenzie Kleespies (Lincoln University, Pa./Avon Grove) added 13 digs in her first career start.

The Pirates attack was led by outside hitter Stacey Manthorpe who finished with 15 kills and 20 digs. Outside hitter Molly Grammer chipped in 13 kills on .481 hitting while adding five blocks. Outside hitter Simona Sekulova and middle blocker Amanda Hansen contributed double digit kills with 11 and 10, respectively. Hansen chipped in a match-high six blocks. Setter Shelbey Manthorpe had a double-double with 44 assists and 13 digs.

Seton Hall picked up 9.5 blocks to just eight for JMU. The Dukes had two service aces to zero for the Pirates, but committed 10 errors to just three for SHU.

The Dukes are back in action next week as they travel to Long Beach, Calif., for a three-day, three-game tournament. Madison plays Long Beach State, Wisconsin and Cal. St. Northridge in the Long Beach St. Mizuno Invitati