Gulls End Beavers' 16-Match Winning Streak

BEVERLY, Mass.—No. 18 Babson College split a pair of four-set matches against Brandeis University and Endicott College inside MacDonald Gymnasium on Saturday afternoon. The Beavers defeated the Judges 25-18, 12-25, 25-17, 25-18 before suffering a 25-14, 19-25, 25-23, 25-15 loss to the host Gulls.

Babson, which had its 16-match winning streak snapped, is now 17-2 overall. Endicott improves to 13-4 with two wins on Saturday, while Brandeis dropped both its matches to slip to 9-9 on the year.

Babson 3, Brandeis 1
First-year Isabella Allen (Williamsville, N.Y.) recorded a season-high 17 kills, while senior Martina Jankovic Chin (Zapresic, Croatia) and junior Lauren Gips (Orlando, Fla.) produced 10 kills apiece for the Beavers, who hit .226 in the win. Graduate student Izzy Seebold (Concord, N.C.) dished out 40 assists in just three sets, while sophomore Tatum Stelter (Glendale, Ariz.) led three players in double figures with a career-high 23 digs.

Sophomore Lara Verstovsek (Houston, Texas) finished with 12 kills and 10 digs, while junior Ines Grom-Mansencal (Cincinnati, Ohio) contributed 31 assists and nine digs to lead the Judges.

The Green and White opened with a 12-5 run and led by as many as 10 before getting a pair of kills to close out the set after Brandeis had closed within 22-18 late in the stanza. Verstovsek put away nine kills in the second set and the Judges hit .333 in an easy win that evened the match at a game apiece.

The Beavers trailed for much of the third before going on an 11-1 run to pull out an eight-point victory. Allen and senior Laura Zuloaga (Naples, Fla.) both had two kills, Gips produced a kill and an ace, and Brandeis made four errors during the spurt.

The Green and White closed out the match by recording 18 kills and hitting .316 in the fourth set. Senior Jordan Lapins (Calgary, Alberta) made it 18-14 with a kill and Gips sparked a five-point run with two kills of her own to give Babson its biggest lead of the stanza at 23-15.

Endicott 3, Babson 1
Jankovic Chin finished with 11 kills, Gips and Allen added nine apiece, and Zuloaga hit .368 and recorded seven kills in the loss. Seebold dished out 32 assists to go along with four service aces and three kills, while Stelter and junior Olivia Leinenweber (Neptune Beach, Fla.) both had 11 digs for the Beavers.

Graduate student Amanda Gilbert (West Falmouth, Mass.) had a double-double with 14 kills and 11 digs, senior Krystina Schueler (Trumbull, Conn.) added eight kills and sophomore Emma Ruel (Duxbury, Mass.) led all players with 19 digs to lead the Gulls. Schueler and graduate student Colleen McAvoy (Coventry, R.I.) tied for match-high honors with five blocks apiece in the victory.

Jankovic Chin and Allen opened the match with back-to-back kills but Endicott followed with a 16-3 run and cruised to an opening set win. The Beavers responded by building a quick 7-3 lead in game two and used consecutive aces by Seebold, a kill by Zuloaga and a block by Jankovic Chin and Zuloaga to stretch the margin to 13-7.

The Gulls got as close as 14-11 on a kill by first-year Kelsey Sanborn (Londonderry, N.H.), but an ace by Stelter and a pair of kills by Lapins sparked a 7-3 burst that gave the Green and White a 21-14 it would not relinquish on the way to evening the match.

Babson led by as many as five in the third and was up 21-19 after a kill by Gips before a five-point Endicott run turned the momentum of the match. Schueler cut the deficit to one with a kill and combined with sophomore Megan Murphy (Danvers, Mass.) on a block to make it 21-21. The Gulls took their first lead on an error and got a pair of late kills from Sanborn to close out a 25-23 win.

The Beavers jumped out a to 4-3 advantage in the fourth set before the hosts rattled off eight of the next 10 points to take an 11-6 lead on a block by Schueler and McAvoy. The Green and White got within four on a service ace by first-year Sophia Shaw (Novato, Calif.) but Endicott followed with a 7-2 run to pull away.

Babson returns to action on Tuesday when it hosts Wheaton at 7 p.m.

MATCH NOTES
• The Beavers are now 13-25 against Brandeis, which includes seven consecutive victories in the all-time series, and are 11-11 versus Endicott.
• Each of the last seven matches between Babson and the Gulls have been decided in four or five sets.
• Prior to Saturday, the Green and White had limited its last 15 opponents to a hitting percentage of .131 or lower. Brandeis hit .167 and Endicott hit .271.
• The loss to Gulls marked the first time in 15 matches this season that Babson lost when recording more service aces than its opponents. The Beavers held an 11-6 advantage in aces but also made a season-high 17 service errors.