The University of Rhode Island’s volleyball team increased their win streak to four after grinding out a five-setter on the road against a good George Washington University team on Friday night, and then dispatching George Mason University in four sets on Saturday night to climb up to third place in the Atlantic 10 Conference standings.
URI came into the hectic environment as the slight underdog, right behind George Washington in the leaderboard. The Rams squeaked by in the first two sets, winning 25-23 and 27-25. The tides then turned when the Colonials came roaring back, with a boisterous crowd behind them, to even the score at two sets apiece, halting all of the Rams’ momentum.
They responded well, however, in the final set by positioning themselves for victory, with a 14-9 advantage and five match points to spare. URI coughed up their commanding lead, and were once again locked in a stalemate with the resilient squad. Rhode Island dug in, and finally closed it out after a kill by sophomore Marie Gillcrist and an error.
Head coach Bob Schneck thinks that the hard-fought victory will give his team a big boost going forward.
“It was a huge match for us to win,” Schneck said. “George Washington is the hardest place to play in the conference. These were some of the most adverse playing conditions that I’ve seen in my 35 years of coaching. We clearly should have ended it before a fifth game. It was clearly their advantage. The kids just endured, and were able to pull out the match.”
URI did not have much time to recover when they took the court the next night against a George Mason squad that held their own early. They split the first two sets, and went back and forth in the third, as the Patriots erased an 18-13 deficit only to later squander three set points. Rhode Island capitalized and took the pivotal set, 29-27, after clutch kills by senior Franki Darnold, who tallied a double-double with 13 kills and 10 digs, and junior Callan Kinnan, who totaled a combined 24 digs in the two games. The Rams bested George Mason again in the fourth set, 24-22, for the clincher.
URI (16-6) will be faced with a difficult task as they look to continue their ascension up the A-10 ladder with matchups against the conference’s top two teams, the University of Dayton and Saint Louis University, both of whom narrowly defeated Rhode Island in five sets earlier in the season. The Rams fell to the Billikens after blowing a two-set lead, but Schneck is confident the result might be different now, after being pushed to the brink by GW, but still being able to prevail at the end.
“Having two wins coming into this weekend is huge,” Schneck said. “It has been a long time away from school, school work. I’d like for us to get some rest. I think this is one of the biggest weekends I can remember in a long time.”
Schneck also urged fan support, which he thinks could go a long way in giving his team a little more firepower to vanquish its rivals.
Rhode Island will host Dayton on Friday night at 7 p.m. before facing Saint Louis the next night, in what should be an important homestand that could alter the A-10 landscape.