Auburn, ME – CMCC Volleyball battled NHTI the full distance in its season-opening match at Kirk Hall Gymnasium, emerging with a victory in five sets, 3-2. Isabella Higgins and Jaki Bartoschek led the Mustangs with nine kills each while Keliah Stith dealt out 23 assists, and new head coach Hanna Webster picked up the win in her debut.
Central Maine led 6-2 to open the first set with returners Autumn Peterson and Natalie Roy picking up kills. The visitors closed to within two, down 10-12, before the Mustangs went on an 8-0 run behind the serves of Jaidyn Elizabeth Perez-Deah to take a commanding 20-10 lead. From there, a few NHTI attack errors gave the hosts the first set, 25-16.
Things were much closer in the second set with neither team leading by more than one through the first 17 points. The Lynx would take the set, even after an official scorer's error incorrectly swapped the score from 7-8 to 8-7 in the Mustangs' favor. NHTI road the attacking skill of Emma Bernard to go on an 11-1 run to take the set.
A pair of first-years each had good moments to help CMCC take the third set. Setter Errow Hinckley from Gray-New Gloucester High School and libero Ella Gahagan from Lewiston High School both helped keep things close in an important go-ahead set. A Hinckley kill made it 22-21 and she had the serve on set point to take it 25-23.
NHTI would not go down without a fight. The Lynx turned a 5-6 deficit into a 10-7 lead in the fourth set. Setter Samantha Locker continued to feed Bernard for kills, and the visitors went on an 8-1 run to turn a 16-16 tie into a 24-17 lead, finishing things off with a Brooke Kelly kill.
That sent the match to a deciding fifth set to 15 points. As it had been all day, the set stayed close with both teams flip-flopping the lead until the latter stages. Once again, Perez-Deah came through with a series of serves to give the hosts a run to go up 14-9. Brooke Hurlbert kept NHTI alive, but an attacking error by Alissa Hamberg ended the match.
Four Mustangs had seven or more kills while Bernard and Kelly had 16 and 14 kills respectively for the visitors. Stith looked comfortable moving to the setter position after playing all but one set as a libero in her freshman year. Perez-Deah tallied three aces and Higgins paced the hosts with 13 digs.
Central Maine next welcomes in the Great Bay Herons on Wednesday.
