Box Score
The Niagara volleyball team had four win streaks snapped in a three-set (23-25, 21-25, 20-25) defeat to the Siena Saints on Saturday. The Purple Eagles’33-match conference win streak was the second longest in MAAC history.
Niagara (20-8, 14-1 MAAC) suffered its first conference defeat against the last team to beat the Purple Eagles. Siena (11-12, 9-6 MAAC) topped NU, 3-1, on Sept. 19, 2010 before Niagara reeled off 33 straight wins against conference opponents, including winning three matches at the 2010 MAAC Championship in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. en route to its second consecutive conference crown.
The Purple Eagles haven’t lost at home in MAAC play in over two seasons, a 3-1 setback to Fairfield on Sept. 19, 2009, which spanned 24 home matches. NU’s 15-match overall win streak , its 17-match home win streak, which was sixth in the nation entering this weekend, and its bid to become the first team to go undefeated in conference play since Fairfield in 2006 also came to a halt.
"The past few weeks where we have not been playing well caught up to us today," head coach
Susan Clements said.
The Purple Eagles, who lead the MAAC in hitting percentage, kills and assists, never clicked on offense. Niagara committed 18 errors and had a hitting percentage of .107. Uncharacteristic mistakes in the first and second sets saw NU down 2-0. Siena took the first set, 25-23, despite having a match-low .023 hitting percentage. Niagara was down 6-1 to start the second set before tying the match at 17-17. However, the Saints went on a 6-0 run and won the set, 25-21.
In the third set, the Purple Eagles were down 17-16 and appeared to force another set, but strong serving by Siena pushed the Saints to a 25-20 win to end the match.
One streak that did survived today was
Sam Morgan’s double-digit digs streak. Morgan finished the match a team-high 20 kills for her 124th consecutive match recording double-digit digs. Fellow senior
Hannah Hedrick led Niagara with nine kills.
Niagara closes out its home portion of its schedule on Sunday against Marist at 2 p.m. where it will honor the five seniors who are the winningest class in program history.
