With Friday’s win over St. Francis and sweeps of Radford and host Bucknell, the Seawolves continued their recent streak of strong play this season. The three wins this weekend gave SB the tournament title in the Bucknell Invitational, making it the Seawolves’ second straight tournament title.
In response to these wins, senior Amy Oleksiej said, ‘This week we had some really great team chemistry, we had a lot of energy on the court and our defense really stepped up as a team.’
The Seawolves defeated the Highlanders by scores of 30-27, 30-21, 30-24 before beating the Bison with scores of 30-21, 30-18, 30-18. The wins made it a season-high with four victories in a row for Stony Brook University, which improved their overall record to 8-6 thus far for the season.
Senior Morgan Sweany (America East Volleyball Player of the Week for the week ending Sept. 9) led the conference with 5.53 points per game and averaged 4.53 kills per game in four matches last week. The senior earned a pair of double-doubles and led the Seawolves in service aces with 11. Amy Oleksiej also had an excellent match for the Seawolves, hitting .368 on her way to a nine-kill, three-block endeavor. Jackie Ahlers led Stony Brook to its win with 16 kills and hitting .462 against Radford. Contributing to that, the graduate student also racked up four blocks. Gulce Nazli Dikecligil, a junior from Istanbul, Turkey, added four aces to go with her five kills and six digs.
When playing against Bucknell it was Sweany who led Stony Brook in kills. She contributed 14 to the tallies and she also hit .324 and added a pair of aces to her record. Ahlers kept up the good work throughout the remainder of the tournament by hitting .435 and she gathering13 kills in the match on Saturday.
The Seawolves are really shaping up together for what looks like a very promising season. This Friday, they will be traveling to Providence, Rhode Island to face Brown University. Saturday they will remain in Providence to face Portland and CCSU. The Seawolves will return home for a match on Tuesday, Sept. 25 against Fordham.
