The Roanoke College women will make their home volleyball debut this weekend as they host the Maroon Classic at the Cregger Center in Salem. RC will play two matches Friday and two Saturday.
On Friday RC will host Mary Baldwin at 6 pm, followed by a match with Piedmont at 8 pm. On Saturday RC has Ferrum at 11 am and Salem College at 3 pm.
The Maroons opened the season at the Averett Cougar Classic in Danville last weekend and split four matches. On Friday they lost to Guilford, 3-1, but bounced back to beat William Peace, 3-2. On Saturday they were shut out by host Averett, 3-0, but again bounced back with a win, defeating Randolph College, 3-1.
Against Randolph the Maroons dropped the first set, 30-28, but won the next three, 25-15, 25-21 and 25-21. In the third set, RC used an 8-1 run with to take a 17-13 advantage with kills from Kylah Blackmore, Ryan Hedgpeth and Logan Graves. With the score tied 4-4 in the final set, Roanoke won the next four points sparked by a kill from Meagan Smith to take a 8-4 edge. RC then used a 7-1 run with a trio of aces from Olivia Earls to make a 18-7 advantage and force a Randolph timeout.
Randolph brought it within one but Roanoke capitalized on three straight WildCats errors in the final three plays to take the match. Roanoke was led by Blackmore with 12 kills and 12 digs, while Hedgpeth tallied 22 digs.
