St. John’s Falls to UCF and No. 24 Georgia Tech

Saturday, August 28

Orlando, Fla (The Venue at UCF)

11 a.m.

St. John's University

0-2,0-0Big East

UCF

1-1,0-0AAC

St. John's (NY)

UCF

8/28/2021 9:01:00 PM | Women's Volleyball

Box Score 1 Box Score 2 Box Score - UCF (PDF)Box Score - Georgia Tech (PDF)

St. John’s finishes fourth at the UCF Challenge.

The St. John's volleyball team lost a pair of straight-set decisions to the University of Central Florida and No. 24 Georgia Tech during the second day of the UCF Challenge.

Set scores against UCF were 25-20, 25-17 and 25-23, respectively. The Yellow Jackets took the second match with set scores of 25-17, 25-16 and 25-20, respectively.

Game One
Reigning BIG EAST Player of the Year Efrosini Alexakou recorded a team-high 10 kills and Tiziana Baumrukova notched a team-high 23 assists, but it was not enough to hold off the host Knights. Ariadni Kathariou and Iliana Rodriguez also registered team-highs for the Red Storm, as Kathariou posted three blocks while Rodriguez notched eight digs on the match.

St. John's came out of the gate strong, capturing four of the opening set's five first points. UCF pulled even at five and the team's traded blows before a 4-0 Red Storm burst made it 16-13 in favor of the Johnnies. With St. John's leading 18-16 following a Giorgia Walther kill, UCF closed the set on a 9-2 tear to take an early 1-0 edge.

The second set was all UCF at the start, as the Knights captured eight of the first nine and nine of the first 11 points. The Red Storm trailed by as many as 11, 16-5, before cutting the deficit to seven, 24-17, late in the set.

In the final frame, UCF jumped out to an quick three-point lead before St. John's unleashed a 9-1 run to move ahead 15-10. Alexakou tallied two kills on the tear. The Knights notched four straight points to pull within one, but a pair of kills and two services aces from Rastelli helped build the Red Storm lead back to four, 19-15, late in the set. UCF, however, responded with an 8-2 run to take a lead that it would not relinquish.

Game Two
Rastelli led the way offensively in the day's second game, tallying 14 kills on a .357 hitting percentage against the Red Storm's second ranked opponent of the weekend. Walther posted six kills on just 14 attempts, good enough for a hitting percentage of .429.

After a Georgia Tech point to start the match, Rastelli recorded two kills and an ace on a 6-0 run to give the Johnnies a sizeable lead early in the first set. With the Johnnies leading 8-3 a little while later, the Yellow Jackets rattled off 11 straight points to move ahead 14-8. St. John's battled back, pulling within two, 17-15, before Georgia Tech closed the set on an 8-2 run.

The second set was a back-and-forth affair to start, as a Bianco Bertolino kill to make it 13-13 marked the 10^th tie of the set. That kill, however, sparked an 8-0 spurt as part of a larger 13-3 run for the Yellow Jackets to take the set, 25-16.

After falling behind by four, 9-5, early in the final set, St. John's responded with a 6-2 run to knot the score at 11. The Red Storm kept it within three for a majority of the frame before Georgia Tech closed out the match with a 25-20 set victory.

St. John's (0-3) will look to capture its first win of the season next weekend at the Great Dane Invitational in Albany, N.Y.