John Carroll did some great work in the opening set at Wooster Tuesday night ... and then turned around and gave it back with a loose second set.
Knotted at 1-1, the Blue Streaks responded to the challenge with conviction, putting together a crisp attack that overwhelmed the host team in a 25-14, 20-25, 25-11, 25-15 victory. The win over the Fighting Scots was John Carroll's fourth in its last five matches to improve to 6-5 on the year.Â
Wooster lost just for the second time this year to fall to 7-2.
John Carroll was scintillating from the start in the opening frame, scoring the first four points and seven of the first eight behind the strong play of
Julianne McGervey and
Leah Switalski, who each had four kills. The Blue Streaks hit .341 as a team (16 kills against just two errors) in leading wire to wire.
The second game started out closer, and when
Kit O'Shaughnessy had a kill to make it 11-10 in favor of Wooster, a nail-biter seemed in the offing. But the host Fighting Scots went on a 9-1 run and never looked back in closing out the second game. JCU had a match-high seven attack errors in that frame.
It would be all Blue Streaks from there on out.
Alexa Webber led the charge with seven kills in game three as JCU made quick work of Wooster. John Carroll scored 14 of the final 18 points of the set to take plenty of momentum into game four.
The home team stayed close in game four. Although JCU never trailed, the set was tied at 6-6, 7-7 and 9-9 before the Blue Streaks uncorked a 9-2 run to all but seal the deal.
Madeline McDowell came through in a big way with a team best six kills to help John Carroll close out the match.
JCU was paced by McDowell and Webber, each of whom had 16 kills. Switalski, who played in her 101st match in a JCU uniform tonight, added 12 as the visitors has a .275 attack percentage for the match.
O'Shaughnessy, who played in her 100th career match tonight as a Blue Streak, supplied 49 assists which was one short of her season high.
Katie Cosker was solid on defense with a match-high 24 digs.
