UMBC

Sabrina Hoeks tallied her first collegiate double-double with 17 kills and 13 digs against New Hampshire.

BALTIMORE—The UMBC volleyball team edged conference-foe New Hampshire in a hard-fought, 3-1, match on Sunday afternoon at the RAC Arena.

The Retrievers (15-4, 2-0 America East) have won their last seven-straight home matches and are currently on a three-match winning streak, including two consecutive America East Conference wins.

The Wildcats (11-6, 0-2 America East) are winless in the America East Conference after dropping their conference-opener to Binghamton and have lost their last two matches.

Sophomore Kira Giles (Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada) led the Retrievers in the win, tallying her third-straight and seventh double-double of the year as she put up 49 assists and a team-high 26 digs.  Giles also added four assisted blocks and two kills on three attacks for a .667 hitting percentage as well as three service aces.

Freshman Sabrina Hoeks (Olympia, Wash./AG West Black Hills) also recorded a double-double, the first of her collegiate career as she finished with a team-high 17 kills and added 13 digs, five block assists and five service aces.  Hoeks had 40 total attacks and committed just one error for a .400 hitting percentage.

Emmy Blouin led the Wildcats with a double-double, totaling 15 kills and 13 digs, while hitting just .184.

The Retrievers built a 13-8 lead in game one, but the Wildcats claimed the lead after a nine-point run sparked by a Lindsay Fogarty kill and eight points behind Kate Uitti’s serve for a 17-13 advantage.

The Retrievers came within one after a seven-point scoring run behind freshman redshirt Helen Smith’s (Gaithersburg, Md./Watkins Mill) kill made the score 28-27, but the Wildcats took the 30-27 win after an Emmy Blouin kill and Retriever error.

The Retrievers once again built a substantial, 21-16, lead in game two, but a serving run by Sara Heldman knotted the score at 21 and took a 22-21 lead before the Retrievers tied the score at 22.  The game would see four more ties before the Retrievers earned the 30-28 set win off sophomore Sarah Fillmore’s (Gaithersburg, Md./Gaithersburg) kill.

Game three was much more evenly matched and saw 16 ties and seven lead changes, forcing the set to extra points.  Back-to-back kills by Fillmore and Hoeks, however, gave the Retrievers the 32-30 victory.

The Wildcats threatened in the fourth and final game, but never came closer than one point after the initial 1-1 tie as the Retrievers earned the most decisive win of the match, 30-24.

Following the match, the UMBC volleyball team and athletics community honored the memories of Maddie and Peggy Bingaman with a ceremony at the site of a Japanese snowbell tree that the school planted in Maddie's honor.  Mark and Katie Bingaman, Maddie's father and sister, and other family and friends were in attendance for the match and the ceremony.

The Retrievers conclude their homestand on Tuesday when they host Georgetown in their fourth-straight home match before traveling to conference rival Stony Brook and Hartford on the weekend.