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ALFRED, NY – The Alfred University women's volleyball team split its Empire 8 Crossover on Saturday afternoon in the Terry S. Galanis Family Arena by topping Hartwick College, 3-2 and falling to Houghton College, 2-3.
 
The Saxons (5-15, 3-3 Empire 8) were led on the offensive side of things by sophomore Amber Smith (Penfield, NY/Webster Schroeder) who hit a .379 against Hartwick College with 27 kills on 58 attempts with five errors. The kills were a career-high for Smith and she added two aces for a career-best 29.0 points. She also added a match-high 16 kills against Houghton College and tacked on two aces and one block assist for a match-second 18.5 points.
 
"After the Houghton match, I talked to the team about the character and the personality that I wanted to see our program have," head coach Dakota Pruiss said. "I told the team, 'do not step on the court to play Hartwick without that personality' and that's exactly what we did. We understood that every point mattered and especially when we're talking about the Empire 8 and about Houghton and Hartwick because all three of us are fighting to make it to the post-season."
 
Smith also had a match-best 22 digs against Hartwick and supplemented her weekend total with 12 against the Highlanders.
 
Smith was joined at the net by seniors Jacquelynn Hicks (Greenville, NY/Greenville), Heather D'Andrea (Erie, PA/Mercyhurst Prep) and Maddison VanEtten (Harpursville, NY/Harpursville Central) as well as first-year Sarah Raeman (Canandaigua, NY/Canandaigua). D'Andrea led the Saxons in the first match against Houghton with 20.0 points (new career-high) from her 14 kills and six service aces. She then had 16.0 points from 12 kills and four aces against Hartwick.
 
Hicks finished the first match with 18.5 points from 15 kills, three aces and one block assist as well as a hitting percentage of .519 (new career-high) with 27 attempts and one error. VanEtten had six kills against Houghton and seven against Hartwick. Her last kill against Hartwick was the match-winner in the fifth set making it her second match-winner of this week as she scored the winner against Elmira College in the fifth set on Tuesday. "When I was standing there, I realized that I was in the same exact position Tuesday, the same 14-11, I just had deja-vu and I was like, well watch this come to me," VanEtten said. "It came to me, I jumped and I said, watch me get a kill and I got the kill and it was very exciting. I am very happy that we were able to execute and come out with a five-set win against Hartwick. It's really going to help us get to the post-season."
 
Raeman tied her career-high with nine kills (9.0 points) against Hartwick.
 

Senior setter Aubrey Totsline (Fairport, NY/Fairport) continued to put distance between herself and the rest of the setters who have played at Alfred University as she had 48 assists against Houghton and a new career-high of 56 assists against Hartwick College. On Tuesday, she broke the Alfred University school record in career set assists. The old record was 2,532 career assists and she came in with 2,490. Totsline busted out a 53 mark in set assists on Tuesday to go up to 2,543. With Saturday's totals, she is now at 2,647. She had a total of 157 set assists in the three matches this week.
 
The Saxons fell to Houghton College with set scores of 19-25, 25-20, 13-25, 25-23, 12-15 but topped Hartwick College 16-25, 26-24, 23-25, 25-15, 15-11.
 
In the later match, sophomores Mikala McCartney (Buffalo, NY/St. Mary's) and Sarah Huzyk (North Chili, NY/Churchville-Chili) along with D'Andrea and junior Elisabeth Estep (Horseheads, NY/Horseheads) joined Smith with double-digit numbers in digs. McCartney was second on the team with 18 digs while Estep had 16, Huzyk had 14 and D'Andrea had 11. D'Andrea also led the Saxons in the first match with 13 digs.
 
The Saxons will next travel to The College at Brockport on Wednesday, October 11 for a 7:30 pm match start before the two-day, two-location Alfred, NY Tournament. Friday, October 13, the Saxons take on Houghton in a non-conference match at 3 pm and then Messiah College at 7 pm at Alfred State College. Saturday, they host Lynchburg College at 10 am and Lycoming College at 4 pm in the Terry S. Galanis Family Arena.