Merrimack Volleyball Splits on Opening Day

The Merrimack College volleyball team opened the 2011 season with a 3-2 victory over Saint Anselm, before falling to Mercy 3-1 Saturday afternoon.

After not winning a five-set match in all of 2010, the Warriors captured the first two sets 25-19 and 25-17 against Saint Anselm, before dropping sets three and four 19-25 and 16-25, but rallied for a 15-13 triumph in a fifth-set that saw eight tie scores and six lead changes.

In the fifth, the Warriors trailed 12-10 before scoring five of the next six points to prevail with the victory, their first under head coach TJ Hajjar.

After Corrine Gosselin of Lawrence converted a kill to cut the deficit to one, Saint A’s followed with a kill of its own, forcing the Warriors to call for time. Out of the timeout, the Hawks committed a service error, and Gosselin followed with an ace, her second of the game to even the score at thirteen. The Hawks followed with an attack error, and freshman Stephane Sheehan of Smithtown, N.Y., sealed the match with her 19th kill in her first career match.

Sheehan debuted with 19 kills, eight digs, two aces, and a .395 attack percentage. Co-captain Brianna Trabucco of Canton recorded her first career double-double with 26 assists and 12 digs as the setter, while sophomore Jackie Jones of Amherst, N.H., debuted as a Warrior with nine kills and five digs.

As a team, the Warriors, which had five new faces in the lineup compared to four returning players, tallied 10 aces from six different players and hit .179 overall.

“We faced a really good, revamped team in Saint Anselm, and it showed a lot of guts for our team to pull out the win in the fifth,” said Hajjar. “Against Mercy, we came out flat and didn’t play with any urgency. We saw some positives and negatives today and that will help us prepare for our next match.”

Game scores against Mercy were 22-25, 25-23, 25-22, and 25-23.

Sheehan notched her first career double-double against Mercy, getting 13 kills and 10 digs, while Jenna Reilly of Northport, N.Y., tallied a team-high 14 kills and hit .478. Twenty attack errors doomed the Warriors, who hit just .097 in the third set. Trabucco picked up 38 assists and two service aces, while Jones had eight kills and five digs.

Brenna White led all players with 20 kills and 11 digs, while Nicolette Gebhardt had 15 kills and 10 digs in the win for Mercy.

The second and fourth set featured 13 tie scores each.

Merrimack (1-1) visits Stonehill Tuesday for a 7 p.m. non-conference match.