Maryland volleyball closes Canes Classic with sweep of Lamar

Maryland volleyball won two of its three matches this weekend. | Photo courtesy of Maryland Athletics.

The Terps leave Florida with a 2-1 record.

Maryland volleyball entered Saturday’s contest against Lamar after splitting its first two matches of the season against FIU and Miami on Friday. Both of those matches went four sets, with the Terps besting FIU 3-1 before losing to Miami.

But in the Terps’ final match of the Canes Classic, Maryland cruised to victory against Lamar with a 3-0 sweep.

Maryland set the tempo immediately in the first set. The Terps recorded three straight kills, including back-to-back putaways from Laila Ivey. Behind two more kills from Ivey and three service aces from Lilly Gunter, the Terps jumped out to an 11-0 lead before Lamar was finally able to score.

Lamar responded with a 10-4 run of its own to draw itself within four points, but that was as close as the Cardinals would get, as Maryland ended the game on an impressive 11-3 run to take the first set, 25-13.

Four Lamar errors early in the second set helped push the Terps to a 14-10 lead after what was an evenly-played start. Powered by two kills from Sam Csire, the Terps opened another 5-0 run to take a strong 19-11 lead before forcing a timeout from Lamar. With Lamar unable to close the gap, Maryland convincingly took the second set, 25-17.

Looking to avoid the sweep, Lamar shot out to a 4-0 lead to start the third set after a service ace and three Maryland errors. The Terps battled back to even the score at four before a stalemate ensued, with neither team able to take more than a two-point lead for most of the set. Still tied at 14-14, Maryland went on an 8-3 run with kills from Ellie Watson, Erin Morrisey and Eva Rohrback, and two from Sydney Dowler. Another kill from Laila Ricks punctuated Maryland’s 11-6 run, as the Terps took down Lamar in the third set, 25-20, to earn a sweep.

Maryland’s 44 kills against Lamar was its lowest mark of the weekend, but the Cardinals posted an underwhelming .048 hitting percentage of their own. For context, Maryland averaged a .258 hitting percentage on the weekend.

The Terps also recorded nine service aces against Lamar, their highest mark in a match thus far.

“It’s nice to have that where we can score from a variety of ways,” Maryland head coach Adam Hughes said. “At times last year, I thought we got stuck and could be one dimensional and now we’re trying to be a little bit more spread and diverse.”

Defensively, the Terps averaged 44 digs per match and managed 34 total blocks on the weekend. Eva Rohrbach led the way with 11 blocks, and Anastasia Russ was right behind her with 10.

Now 2-1 on the season, Maryland will make the short trip to Annapolis next weekend for the Kristen Dickmann Invitational, where it will take on Old Dominion, Utah Valley and Navy.

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