ITHACA, N.Y. – The Ithaca College volleyball program won both of its matches on Saturday at the Bomber Invitational in Ben Light Gymnasium. Ithaca took down Wells, 3-0, to start the day and then battled Widener to a four-set win. With the two victories, the Bombers are now 7-1 on the season, which is the best start since 2007.

Over the two matches, sophomore Kayla Gromen handed out 65 assists with 11 kills (.417 hitting percentage), nine digs and seven service aces. Fellow sophomore Joelle Goldstein led the Bombers with 21 kills and contributed 20 digs, five assists and four aces.

Freshman Katie Evans continued her stellar play on Saturday, as she put down 20 kills on a .429 hitting percentage. Classmate Kyle Dandrea finished the day with 13 kills, 12 digs, three blocks and two aces, while senior Dylan Gawinski-Stern notched 26 digs and four assists.

Freshman Amanda Cerruti tallied eight kills and five total blocks. While fellow freshman Hailey Adler totaled 15 digs and seven kills. Sophomore Marlee Wierda added nine digs over two matches.

In just one match, sophomore Caroline Gerulskis notched five kills, four aces and four digs in the four-set win over Widener.

MATCH ONE: Ithaca 3, Wells 0 – 25-21, 25-17, 25-19

The Bombers trailed for most of the first set until they knotted things up at 14-14. From there, Ithaca went on a 10-4 run to establish set point. Wells scored the next three points, but Dandrea ended the game with a kill.

In the second set, Ithaca never trailed and jumped out to a 13-5 advantage. The Express would score the next five points to pull to within 13-10, but the Bombers quickly went up by seven points at 20-13 to put the set away. The third set was another close battle up to a 10-10 deadlock, but just like the previous two sets, Ithaca would go on a run (7-1) to finish off the sweep.

Ithaca had nine aces in the match and hit .233, compared to .117 for Wells. The Express were effective at the net, tallying eight blocks (16 block assists). Ten of 11 players saw action for Ithaca in the match.

MATCH TWO: Ithaca 3, Widener 1 – 25-20, 18-25, 25-21, 25-20

In the only four-set contest of the Bomber Invitational, Ithaca came away with a hard fought victory over the Pride.

Widener started the match on a 3-0 run, but the Bombers answered with six unanswered points to go up, 6-3. Another three-point run for the Pride knotted the set at 6-6, and then points alternated up to 10-10. Ithaca ran off five of the next six points to force a timeout, and the Pride would respond with a 4-2 run to make the set, 17-15, Ithaca. Once the set reached 20-17, the Bombers ended things with three kills and a pair of errors.

In set two, Ithaca led all the way up to an 11-11 tie. Widener would then score seven of the next nine points to go ahead, 18-13. The Bombers got back to within two at 18-16, but another 7-2 run for Widener capped the set off.

The third set featured numerous runs by both squads. Once Ithaca went up, 5-3, Widener scored five unanswered to turn its deficit into an 8-5 edge. The Bombers then scored six straight to force Widener into a timeout at 11-8. Out of the break, Ithaca extended its cushion to 16-11, but the Pride brought it back to a 16-14 difference.  A 4-0 run for the Bombers made the score, 20-14, and then Ithaca called a timeout after the score turned to 22-18. With the set now at 23-21 in favor of Ithaca, Gromen and Dandrea put down back-to-back kills to give Ithaca a 2-1 lead in the match.

Widener seemed destined to force a fifth set after jumping out to an 11-5 lead in set four, but fought back to tie it up at 14-14. The set stayed within two points until the Bombers took a 22-19 edge, and then received three straight kills from Evans to secure the victory.

In the fourth set, Evans went a perfect 6-for-6 in kills.

Ithaca returns to action on Sept. 15 at 6 p.m. for an Empire 8 Conference match at Elmira.

#ICVictory