Eagles Roll Past Royals

SCRANTON, Pa.- The Juniata women's volleyball team closed the weekend with a 3-1 (25-16, 31-33, 25-11, 26-24) win over Scranton, Saturday afternoon at the John Long Center. 

In the opening set, trailing 5-6, The Eagles put together a 14-4 run to jump ahead 19-10 as they took control. Dejia Danhi (Ashburn, Va. / Stone Bridge) had three kills during the run, Victoria Taylor (Middletown, Del. / Delaware Military Academy) added three of her own, Morgan Edwards (Lancaster, Pa. / Penn Manor) tallied two and Emma Davis (East Berlin, Pa / Dover Area HS) chipped in with one. The Eagles wound up taking set one 25-16 on a bad set.  

The second set saw the Eagles fall behind 4-11 early and spend the rest of the set trying to climb out of it. Scranton, reached set point, 21-24, but the Eagles took the next four points to get set point, 25-24. Davis put down a kill, Sophia Gingrich (Minneapolis, Minn. / Minneapolis Southwest H.S.) notched an ace, Marie Gonsar (New Castle, Pa. / Shenango H.S.) and Moira Folan (Pittsburgh, Pa. / Oakland Catholic HS) each notched kills to put Juniata back ahead. The teams traded points, with a Taylor kill tying the score again at 31-31. The Royals took the final two points, first on an Eagle service error followed by a kill to end set two, 33-31. 

The third set saw the Eagles completely dominate as they hit .364 and capitalized on several Royal errors to win going away, 25-11.  

The fourth set again saw the Eagles fall behind 4-11 and were still trailing by eight at 8-16 when they made their run. Two errors from the Royals and an ace from Aly Reardon (Downingtown, Pa. / Downingtown West HS) made it 11-16. Following a Royal kill, they committed two straight errors to make it 13-17 before an Eagle attack error pushed the deficit back to five. A kill from Edwards and two more Royal errors made it 16-18. Scranton took the following three points and eventually reached a set point, 19-24. A kill from Taylor, an ace from Reardon, a solo block from Gonsar, a block from Danhi and Edwards followed by back to back aces by Reardon had JC at match point. Danhi and Gonsar ended the match with a block as the Eagles won 26-24.  

Juniata will face DeSales next Friday at 5:00 in the DeSales Invitational.