PSU Women’s volleyball outlasts WestConn enroute to LEC Championship

John LaPierre

He/Him

Staff Writer

11/9/23

For the 2023 Little Eastern Conference tournament semifinals, women’s volleyball matched up against conference opponent Western Connecticut State University Wolves. Before this game, Plymouth State had seen Western Connecticut once in the regular season winning that game 3-1. 

Coming into this game Plymouth State was the number two seed with a  22-4 with a 6-2 conference record and Western Connecticut State University came in with a 20-7 record with a 7-1 record in the Little Eastern Conference. 

In set one, the Panthers looked good out the gate both offensively and defensively. Nora Ryan was outstanding on the front showing off her defensive presence early. No matter who was the front three for Plymouth, they were outstanding. Lilli Stogner was really stellar on offense. Ryley Mcneeley always seems to shine on offense. The first half of the set was pretty even but in the second half, West Conn had no answers for Plymouth. The Panthers would go on to win the first set 25-12. 

The second set got underway and The wolves jumped out to a 6-1 lead out the gate. After the first set, West Conn had made some adjustments overall. Aynslee King and Lindsey Sanderson held down the front defensively. Plymouth was able to rally from being down 9-2 early on in the set to eventually win 25-20. 

It seemed like Makayla Marucci was all over the court as she was showing hustle in every set including set three. McNeeley King continued to show stellar defense up front for the Panthers against the West Conn offense. Again Ryan was outstanding for the Panthers offense. I feel like on West Conn two players really should get credit for their efforts and hustle for the Wolves Delia Clouden and Taylor Rohan were trying to spark the Wolves offense all night. Plymouth was holding their tiny lead, but the Wolves weren’t going down easy. Western Connecticut ended up winning the third set 29-27.

We have the fourth set underway starting with Marucci getting a couple aces. The Panthers came out firing out the gate with a highly anticipated offense. Emma Hampton was really good defensively as she showed her powerful serve and block on defense. Ryan continued to dominate up front defensively. Stogner added some aces as well. This was by far the best set for the Panthers on the night. The Wolves tried to rally and come back but the Panthers were out-matching them routing them to a 25-11 set win.

“Through the last couple of practices, we have really focused on staying level-headed. Coming off of a 5-set loss to Umass Dartmouth to get the 2nd seed would have affected us in one of two ways. We could’ve let it defeat our confidence or we would have focused on what we did right and how we can fix the things that we did wrong. Today, we really understood what it meant to take the game point by point and trust our training.” said Marucci about the team’s preparation for this game

Coming up for the Panthers, they will travel to the number one-seeded University of Massachusetts Dartmouth on Saturday, November 11 for a 6:30 pm start.