ROCHESTER, N.Y. – In a highly anticipated affair against arguably the top-2 teams of the Liberty League, the Ithaca College volleyball team stumbled on the road 1-3 to RIT on Wednesday evening. The Bombers won the second set and RIT rebounded to take the next two as they improved to a Liberty League best, 17-2 and 5-0 within the conference while IC dropped to 11-9 and 4-1 within conference play.

Inside the Box Score

• The Tigers won a back and forth first set 25-20, before dropping the second to IC by a score of 25-22 and then rebounded by taking the third and fourth sets by scores of 25-19 and 25-19.
• Both teams had strong hitting nights with RIT besting Ithaca with 52 kills compared to 43, but the Tigers did have eight blocks at the net led by the trio of Katie Hobler, Calista Gasper and Grace Phelan.
• Junior outside hitter Camryn O'Leary was in top form for Ithaca tallying a season-best 14 kills and offensively was helped out by Jamie Koopman who had a dynamic match with eight kills and four blocks.
• Julia Costa was defensively sound with 21 digs that matched the Tigers Kiana Walker who matched that output on the backline. First year setter Peyton Miller dished out 39 assists and also had a block assist at the net.
• It was a well-rounded offensive evening for RIT with both Katie Hobler (20) and Taylor Higgins (19) notching double-digit kills.

How it Happened

• The Bombers were rolling early building off a pair of 3-0 sweeps from this past weekend over Liberty League opponents and held a 10-6 first set lead that forced an RIT timeout that revitalized the home team and assisted them to tie the score at 11-11. IC retook the lead at 14-12, but the Tigers rattled off 10-straight points and won the first set 25-20.
• Ithaca College once again built an early lead at 9-5 and they used a nice run of points to go up by seven points and won the second set decisively to tie the match at 1-1.
• It was a 10-2 run within the third set that set back the Bombers in the third set, but they did respond to make it 20-18 but unfortunately, they were unable to string together anymore points as RIT went on to win 25-22.
• The Bombers held several different leads in the fourth set including a 14-10 advantage after back-to-back aces by Jennifer Pitts. Another big scoring run by RIT put the match away with IC unable to break the run.

Ithaca College will take part in a tri-match in Huntingdon, Pa. squaring off against Christopher Newport University and Juniata College on Saturday, October 16 with the first match against CNU taking part at 11 a.m.