Maryland volleyball pushes back to .500 with 3-1 win over William & Mary

Photo by Grayson Belanger/Maryland Terrapins. Photo courtesy of Maryland Athletics

Heading into Saturday’s contest, Lilly Wagner had played a crucial role in Maryland volleyball’s offense.

The redshirt freshman had recorded at least 27 assists in all of the Terps’ games this season. Wagner’s performance against William & Mary was no different, notching a career-best 34 assists.

Backed by another strong game from Wagner and a solid defensive performance from defensive specialist Ally Williams, Maryland (2-2) downed William & Mary (2-2) 3-1 at the Chesapeake Arena in Baltimore.

Wagner was the key contributor in Friday’s 3-0 sweep of Old Dominion, recording 27 assists. On Saturday, Wagner remained one of the focal points of Maryland’s attack.

For the fourth consecutive opening point, Maryland started strong offensively, hitting at over a 32% clip and securing 15 kills. Despite recording just one kill in the first set, Wagner was pivotal to the Terps’ offensive success, notching 11 assists and setting up senior opposite hitter Ajack Malual for six of her seven kills that point.

But similar to Maryland’s first two games, the Terps faltered in the following set. William & Mary posted a strong defensive performance in its last outing against UMBC, tallying 28 total blocks.

The Tribe’s defense was prominent in the second set against the Terps. William & Mary notched 11 blocks and forced 13 attacking errors, allowing it to keep the game close late into the set. At 24-24, Arnason took over, slamming down her fifth and sixth kills of the set, and evening the match at 1-1. But unlike Maryland’s first two games of the season, the Terps did not falter the rest of the game. 

A cleaner third set for the Terps was capped off with a streak of kills by junior outside hitter Haley Melby and Malual, closing out a back-and-forth, 27-25 victory. Malual recorded her twelfth kill to secure the final point, undermining a six-kill set from the Tribe’s junior outside hitter Audrey Brcka.

In the final set, it was middle blocker Eva Rohrbach who took over for the Terps. The junior tallied three kills with the Terps behind, helping them in a 9-1 run to put Maryland ahead 20-17. 

Despite William & Mary rallying to even the game at 24, a pivotal attack error from the otherwise polished Arnason gave the final point to the Terps. The error secured a 26-24 set win and a 3-1 set triumph. 

Maryland now heads into its Sunday matchup against UMBC with a chance to sweep the weekend series.