ALFRED, NY – The Alfred University women's volleyball team picked up its second Empire 8 Athletic Conference win in a row with a five-set victory over the visiting Gators of Sage Colleges on Saturday afternoon in the Terry S. Galanis Family Arena.
 
The Saxons (8-18, 2-5 Empire 8) fell in the first and fourth set but finished with set scores of 15-25, 29-25, 25-13, 17-25, 15-13. "Closing out the conference schedule with two wins on the weekend was great, but it was even better to see strong performances from a lot of players that didn't see as much court time this season as their opposition today," Head Coach Dakota Pruiss said. "Rachel [Moravansky] had a great day across the board, Rylee's [Russin] performance was very strong as well and we saw a great showing from Samara [Mok]!"
 
Rachel Moravansky (Mount Airy, MD/Linganore) led the Saxons with 13.0 points from seven kills, four service aces, one block solo and two block assists. Rylee Russin (Broomfield, CO/Broomfield) had 11.5 points from 10 kills and three block assists. Meg Maddalena (Portola, CA/Portola) rounded out the top scorers with 10.0 points from eight kills and four block assists.
 
Katie Geruso (Queensbury, NY/Queensbury) led the Saxon blockers with five block assists as she added seven kills for 9.5 points. In terms of solo blocks, Samara-Jade Mok (Ramstein-miesenbach, Germany/Ramstein) had two to lead the match while tacking on five kills for 7.0 points and three digs. Adding to the defensive side of things for Alfred University was Mikala McCartney (Buffalo, NY/St. Mary's) and her match-leading 20 digs. Darian Ortiz (Santa Fe, NM/St. Michael's) followed with 17 digs.
 
Two out of the three sets that the Saxons won were close sets as the second set went to extra points with AU claiming the 29-27 win after being down, 24-19. AU put together a 7-3 run to make it 26-27 in favor of Sage before three Sage errors gave the set to the Saxons.
 
In the fifth set, Sage got out to an early 7-4 lead before Alfred scored five, unanswered points to take a 10-7 lead. The Gators battled back to take a 13-12 lead before the Saxons scored three straight points to claim the match.
 
The Saxons will next close out the 2019 campaign with non-conference matches against Oswego State and SUNY Poly on Saturday, November 2 with the first match starting at 12:30 p.m. on the court at the Terry S. Galanis Family Arena.