Saint Peter's Box Score
Lafayette Box Score
After playing its way to a 3-1 win over Rider on Friday, the Fairleigh Dickinson women's volleyball team earned a perfect 3-0 record at the Lafayette Tournament with Saturday's victories over Saint Peter's and Lafayette in Easton, PA.
The Knights (4-2) took care of business in their first match of the day against Saint Peter's with a 25-12, 25-15, 25-13 straight set victory. FDU grabbed control early with 16 kills in the first set, five courtesy of Chelsea Braga (Long Beach, NY/Long Beach ), while committing zero hitting errors.
“We controlled the pace of the match from the first set to the last,” Head Coach Stacey Recanati said. “We had three strong hitting performances: Chelsea Braga (Long Beach, NY/Long Beach ), led with a hitting percentage of .588, Sarah Berkland (Newton, MA/Newton North) (.571) and Meaghan Wheeler (Chatsworth, CA/Chaminade College Prep) (.560).”
Collectively, the Knights recorded a .443 hitting percentage with just nine errors in the match. Individually, Wheeler compiled a match-high 16 kills against the Peahens, followed by Braga's 11 and Berkland's nine.
Kelsey Semler (Allentown, PA/Allentown Central Catholic) had 12 digs, and Sarah Willey (Abingdon, MD/Bel Air) set up her teammates on 27 occasions in the Knights' first contest of the day.
After dropping set one, 25-23, to the host Lafayette Leopards in their second match, the Knights got back on track to score 25-18, 25-18 and 25-19 wins the rest of the way to remain the only unbeaten team at the Lafayette Tournament.
Again the Knights were impressive at the net with 57 total kills. FDU's Wheeler amassed 32 kills in the match, one more than Lafayette's team total of 31.
“That's a huge thing for one hitter to outhit an entire team,” Recanati said.
Wheeler picked up her third double-double of the 2011 campaign by adding 12 digs to her 32 kills.
Willey also had a double-double by dishing out a season-high 44 assists (surpassing her previous best of 42) and 18 digs.
The Knights put together a number of tournament-topping performances over the weekend. Wheeler led the field in kills (72), hitting percentage (.369) and kills per set (6.55). Semler's 66 digs were top among all competitors, while Willey had a tournament-best 113 assists and 10.27 per set. Meghan Alger (Cheltenham, MD/Bishop McNamara) had eight service aces to lead the field and finished second in blocks per set with 1.09.
Next up for the Knights is a road test against the La Salle Explorers on Wednesday, Sept. 7, at 7 p.m.
