New York, NY - The John Jay women's volleyball team was back in The Doghouse on Thursday night, kicking off the CUNY Athletic Conference slate against cross-borough foes, the Hunter College Hawks.
The crowd inside The Doghouse on the campus of John Jay College was lively for a rematch of the CUNYAC Championship final. The two sides went the distance, with the Hawks taking the victory.
Set One: Hunter 19 | John Jay 25
The home side came out motivated in the opening set. After dropping the opening point, the Bloodhounds ripped off the next six points with newcomer Julia Stuart scoring three kills in the stretch.
Their attack maintained the intensity through the set, hitting for a match-high .308. John Jay took six of eight points in the middle stretch of the set to extend its advantage to 15-8.
Despite a hiccup in the late stages, a pair of kills by Josanne Lewis in the final three points clinched a 25-19 first set win.
Set Two: Hunter 25 | John Jay 22
The pace of the second set was a mirror to the first, as the Hawks jumped out to a 9-3 advantage. John Jay was beleaguered by attack errors throughout the frame, logging a pair that sandwiched two Hunter service aces, in a run that gave the Hawks a 15-6 lead.
Errors came back to bite Hunter late in the second set with three consecutive flubs capping off a six-point run for the Bloodhounds that cut the visitors' lead to just three points.
Both sides traded points down the stretch with Hunter maintaining its advantage for a 25-22 set win. The Hawks were held to just a .143 hitting percentage in the set, their highest of the match.
Set Three: Hunter 19 | John Jay 25
John Jay found its rhythm in the middle of the third set, with the block setting the tone for the Bloodhounds. Madison Reyes, who finished with a match-high five blocks, dumped two in a row across the net to cap a 7-1 run that gave the home side a 16-3 advantage.
Stuart continued to serve as a factor in the offense in her first conference match, coming up with three of her match-high 15 kills late in the set to keep her team in front. The rookie and the grad student, Reyes, closed out the 25-19 set with an emphatic final block in the third.
Set Four: Hunter 25 | John Jay 18
The Hawks came ready to force a fifth set. Izabella Williams recorded one of her match-high 18 kills in the opening points to help her team out to a 7-2 advantage. Hunter was able to force the Bloodhounds out of system for the highest rate of the match in the penultimate set, resulting in just six kills for the John Jay attack.
Nina Bongiovanni provided a spark in the fourth set off the bench, scoring a pair of unconventional kills late to help her side log a 7-1 run that cut the Hunter lead to just 19-13. That deficit was too high to overcome in the set, as the Hawks forced a fifth set with a 25-18 win.
Set Five: Hunter 25 | John Jay 18
The Bloodhounds were unable to get their feet under them in the final frame, with Hunter jumping ahead with the first five points of the fifth set. Three of Hunter's first seven points were attributed to attack errors by John Jay, putting the home side in an insurmountable hole.
Stuart had the best showing for the Bloodhounds in the fifth set, accounting for two kills. Hunter secured the match victory with a 15-6 fifth set win.
Josanne Lewis finished with a team-high 15 kills, adding 14 digs for her fourth double-double of the season. Stuart added 14 kills of her own in her CUNYAC debut. Meghan Smith finished with a double-double of her own, recording 33 assists and 16 digs. Madison Reyes's five blocks on the night count for a season-high mark for the Bronx native.
NEXT UP: The Bloodhounds hit the road again on Saturday, Sept. 21 with a match against the United States Merchant Marine Academy. First serve is scheduled for 10:00 a.m. in Kings Point.
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