GLENVILLE, W.Va. – The West Virginia State University volleyball team picked up its second road win in two days with a sweep of Glenville State on Wednesday night, 3-0.
West Virginia State improves to 6-1 in the Mountain East Conference with the win while Glenville State drops to 0-4 in the MEC with the loss.
Junior outside hitter Jenna Dufresne took the reigns once again with a game-high 20 points. She had 19 kills and two block assists to go along with five digs. Fellow junior Grace Martin scored 9.5 points for her team with five kills, three service aces, and three block assists. Freshman setter Peri Martin was on top of her game for the second night in a row with 36 assists.
Two Yellow Jackets registered double-digits in digs. Freshman Alex Darby scooped up 16 digs while sophomore Rachelle Madison shoveled 12 digs to aid in the defensive effort.
The beginning of the first set was close with GSC coming within two points of drawing even, 9-7. The next 10 points then all went in favor of WVSU to give the Yellow Jackets a commanding 13-point advantage, 20-7. Seven kills and a service ace by West Virginia State along with two attack errors by Glenville State made up the 10-0 run. WVSU allowed just two points to go the other way in the following seven rallies to claim the first set handily, 25-9.
The second set was a completely different story. The Pioneers went in front early on and had a clear path to taking the set late with a 23-18 lead over West Virginia State. Kills by J'Lana Stone and Dufresne followed by two consecutive aces by Gabrielle Bullock then cut the deficit to a single point, 23-22. An attack error by WVSU then handed set point to Glenville State, 24-22. Two ball handling errors by GSC leveled the score before a kill from Peri Martin granted set point to West Virginia State, 25-24. Two kills from the Pioneers then tossed set point back over to the opposing side, 26-25. Set point was turned over once more with the next two points going to WVSU, 27-26. A GSC kill evened the score before a Dufresne kill and a bad set on the other side of the net finally awarded the hard-fought second set to West Virginia State, 29-27.
The better conditioned side proved to be WVSU with the Yellow Jackets rebounding from the exhaustive second set to take an 11-5 lead at the start of the third. There was no looking back from that point forward as the Yellow Jackets coasted to taking the third set on a 14-7 run. The match-clinching point came from the Martin sisters with Peri setting up Grace for the kill.
The Yellow Jackets were much more accurate with their attacks than their opponents with a .308 hitting percentage compared to a .051 hitting percentage by the Pioneers.
West Virginia State will add on to its mileage this week with another road trip to West Virginia Wesleyan on Friday, Feb. 26. The match is scheduled to start at 7 p.m.
