ALFRED, NY – The Alfred University women's volleyball team picked up an Empire 8 win over visiting Utica College on Friday evening in the Terry S. Galanis Family Arena, 3-2.
 
The Saxons (7-18, 1-5 Empire 8) defeated the Pioneers in five sets with scores of 25-19, 21-25, 23-25, 25-21 and 15-11. "I'm happy we got the win going into tomorrow's match," Head Coach Dakota Pruiss said. "We had some strong performances across the board but still have a couple of things to tighten up for our match against Sage. Sarah [Raeman] and Rylee [Russin] played very well."
 
Sarah Raeman (Canandaigua, NY/Canandaigua) led the Saxons with a career-high 21.0 points off of a career-high 14 kills and tacked on five aces and four block assists. She added three digs and one set assist. Three other Saxons had double-digit points as Amber Smith (Penfield, NY/Webster Schroeder) had 12.5 off of 12 kills and one block assist, Lainey Arneson (Yorktown, VA/Tabb) had 11.0 points from nine kills, one solo block and two assisted and Rylee Russin (Broomfield, CO/Broomfield) had 10.5 points from 10 kills and one block assist.
 
The Saxon serves were spearheaded by Raeman but three other Alfred University players had three aces each as Rachael Moravansky (Mount Air, MD/Linganore), Amanda Burns (Pine Bush, NY/Pine Bush) and Darian Ortiz (Santa Fe, NM/St. Michael's) all had three. Burns led the match in set assists with 50, just six short of the Alfred University record set by Aubrey Totsline '17 who had 56 against Hartwick College in 2017. Burns also had the lone Saxon double-double as she added 11 digs to her 50 assists. Ortiz led AU in digs with 16 while Alex Taylor (Rancho Cucamonga, CA/Los Osos) followed with 14.
 
Raeman and Katie Geruso (Queensbury, NY/Queensbury) both had four block assists on the evening to lead AU.
 
In the first set of play, the Saxons held the advantage for the entire set besides one tie at 1-1. AU even held, at one point, an 11-point lead, 16-5 before Utica pushed back and made it a 21-19 Saxon lead. Russin posted two kills while Moravansky closed the set with two kills of her own (all four kills were Burns assists).
 
Despite dropping the next two sets with close scores, it was still Utica that came out firing in the fourth, building a narrow, 7-4 lead before Alfred went on a 6-3 run to tie it, 10-10. Both teams exchanged ties and lead changes until Utica held the 19-17 advantage. The Saxons forced a fifth set with an 8-2 run that had kills from Raeman, Smith, Russin and Arneson and one ace from Raeman.
 
The fifth set, like all four previous ones, was still a close battle between the two squads but it was AU that got to eight points first, switching sides with an 8-5 lead off a kill from Arneson. The Pioneers kept things interesting as they battled back to a 10-9 Saxon advantage. Geruson reclaimed the serve off a kill from Burns who then upped the score to 12-9 after another ace. A Saxon service error was immediately followed by a Smith kill and a dual block from Raeman and Geruso to make it 14-10. Utica's final point was scored off a miss on an attack from AU. The Saxons claimed the Empire 8 win off a kill from Raeman, closing the set, 15-11.
 
The Saxons will next host Sage College on Saturday, October 26 at 1 p.m. in the Terry S. Galanis Family Arena in their final Empire 8 match of the 2019 season.