Poor serving helps Delaware State sweep Coppin volleyball

Coppin State outside hitter Ashley Saunders attempting her jump serve. Serving wasn't on target for CSU in their loss to Delaware State on Oct. 22.

by Keith Henry

At this point in the volleyball season, Coppin State finds different ways of hurting themselves in critical situations. Their struggles continued at the PEC as their lack of good serving costed them in a 3-0 (25-14, 25-19, 25-16) loss to the Delaware State Lady Hornets on October 22.

Delaware State (10-10, 3-1 MEAC) showed a balanced attack with Erica Tajchman leading the way with eight kills on the evening. But it was setter Martina "Mia" Ferrari who really stepped out for the Lady Hornets with 32 assists, which made head coach Renee Arnold very happy. "One of Mia's goals was to spread the sets around and push herself to do different things because she's been set into what she sets in different places. Today was a good day for us to try out some new things, new crossing patterns. It worked out well," said Arnold.

Coppin State (3-18, 0-5 MEAC) ran into their big serving problems in game two. Every time the Lady Eagles would start well or try to get back into the game, a serve would hit the net which turned the momentum back to the Lady Hornets. Case in point, Coppin was down 15-11 when they came back on a kill by Ashley Saunders, a double block of Sarah Wheatcroft by Saunders and Alexandria Malesick, then a double contact error by Ferrari cut the deficit to 15-14. Then a serve from Vanity Massey hits the net, turning the ball over to DSU, extending the lead to 16-14 in the Lady Hornets' favor. That was one of six missed serves for Coppin State in that game alone.

That missed serve sparked a 5-1 Delaware State run which ended on a Tajchman kill, extending the advantage to 20-15. That run effectively put the Lady Eagles away in the second game. Coppin head coach Romonzo Beans shared that it was a combination of things that led to the Coppin loss saying, "Serving was a big factor. Some key figures as far as my libero was way off her game. The girls putting the ball where the balls should go. Blocks doing their jobs. People aren't doing what they need to be doing. They're not playing the type of ball that's needed out there."

Delaware State also took advantage of Coppin's inaccurate passing. The Lady Hornets repeatedly pounded down CSU's overpasses. When this was mentioned to Tajchman after the game, she responded,"We did our job tonight and it paid off. We stuck to our fundamentals and just tried to improve on that."

The Lady Hornets jumped on Coppin in the third game, getting off to a 10-3 advantage, led by three kills from Jessica Barnes and a double block of Malesick from Barnes and Ashley Herman. DSU never let up from there.

Delaware State limited Saunders to five kills and a .125 hitting percentage in the match. DSU recorded eight blocks to CSU's six. The Lady Hornets' block was a factor in their win. Arnold said about the blocking, "I thought we did well in game one and we kind of let up in all the other games. That's just pure aggression and we kind of let up. We should've kept pushing on that front. I thought Coppin did a good job of getting around our blocks in the second game. they made smrter shots, so it was harder for us to block. But I'm happy with the first game and the blocking we did get."

Coach Beans still looks for the silver lining in every game. Although it's getting tougher and tougher to do so, he said,"(There are) some things you can't teach. Some things, you know, is developed over time and some of them are getting it. But they weren't firing on the same cylinders all together. Until they can all play consistently on the same level, we're going to have battles. Battles on our own side. We're beating ourselves. We gave (Delaware State) 14 points (on errors). The game is halfway over."