St. John’s Falls to Bowling Green, 3-2, in the NIVC Fab Four

Saturday, December 14

Queens, N.Y. (Carnesecca Arena)

7 p.m.

St. John's University

24-13,10-8Big East

Bowling Green

25-9,16-2MAC

Bowling Green

St. John's (NY)

St. John’s Falls to Bowling Green, 3-2, in the NIVC Fab Four

12/14/2024 10:48:00 PM | Women's Volleyball

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Erin Jones tallied her 13th double-double of the season

QUEENS, N.Y. – The St. John's volleyball team fell to Bowling Green, 3-2, in a five-set heartbreaker in the NIVC Fab Four on Saturday night inside Carnesecca Arena.

After taking the first two sets, St. John's (24-13, 10-8 BIG EAST) fell to Bowling Green (25-9, 16-2 MAC) in the following three. The scores of the sets were 25-19, 25-20, 23-25, 17-25 and 14-16.

Erin Jones registered her 13^th double-double of the season on a match-best 20 kills at a 35.9 hitting percentage with 14 digs. The junior also registered seven assists, three service aces and a block assist.

Giorgia Walther posted 13 kills and two block assists while Magda Stambrowska tallied nine kills at a 36.8 percent clip with five aces and three swats. Ludovica Zola totaled six kills and four rejections.

Wiktoria Kowalczyk paced the match with 44 assists to go along with five digs, four kills and four total blocks. Rashanny Solano Smith collected a team-high 16 digs, paired with three helpers.

St. John's raced out to a 7-2 lead to kick off the first set, capitalizing off a pair of Walther kills and Stambrowska blocks. Exchanging scores to an 8-4 Red Storm advantage, the Johnnies rang up a 5-0 rally that featured two aces from Stambrowska that grew their lead to nine, 13-4, and burned a Bowling Green timeout. The Falcons countered back with a 7-2 run of their own, 15-11, until St. John's used a 3-1 spurt to go back up by six, 18-12. Despite going point-for-point at the end of the stanza, the Red Storm was able to take the opening frame, 25-19. Walther paced the game with five kills.

After battling to a 5-5 stalemate to begin the second set, the Johnnies put together a 5-0 surge sparked by a pair of Jones kills, to go ahead, 10-5. Bowling Green responded with a 7-3 counter that cut its deficit to one, 13-12, benefiting from two Jessica Andrews slams. Trading 2-0 spurts to an 18-17 St. John's edge, the Red Storm put together a final 7-3 run that was capped off by a Falcon attack error to take a 2-0 lead in the match, 25-20. Jones tallied eight kills in the second stanza.

The Johnnies stormed out to a 6-2 advantage at the start of the third game behind kills from Jones and Kowalczyk, leading to a Falcon timeout. Bowling Green engineered a 4-0 scoring period on a pair of Lauryn Hovey slams, tying the frame at 6-6. Knotted at 13-13, the Falcons rang up a 4-1 burst, taking a three-point edge, 17-14. Down 22-19, St. John's registered three straight scores that consisted of kills from Stambrowska and Lucrezia Lodi combined with a Falcon error, evening the frame up at 22. Bowling Green was able to hold on with a final 3-1 spurt, taking the third set, 25-23. Zola picked up four blocks in the third stanza.

The Falcons grabbed an initial 10-5 advantage in the fourth period, leading to the Red Storm using both of its timeouts. Ahead 12-7, Bowling Green extended its lead to 11, 19-8, from a 7-1 run that had four kills between Mia Tyler and Hovey. Despite a final 9-6 stretch in the Johnnies' favor, with four of their scores coming at set point, the Falcons never surrendered their lead, evening the match with a 25-17 fourth-set victory. Jones registered four kills in the penultimate frame.

St. John's built an opening 6-3 lead after logging four slams between Jones, Walther and Stambrowska. Bowling Green proceeded to put together a 5-2 rally, knotting the frame at 8-8, midway through the set. Sending short spurts at each other to a 14-14 tie, the Falcons were able to find two straight points off a kill and a block to take the final set and the match, 16-14. Walther tallied five kills in the final frame.