NEWBURGH, NY (OCTOBER 8, 2022): The King's College Monarchs women's volleyball team continued their success in non-conference play as they swept a tri-match for the third weekend in a row. This time they did so on the road on Saturday over the St. Joseph's University Long Island Golden Eagles and the Mount Saint Mary College Knights. With the wins, the Monarchs improve to 13-5 on the season and 13-1 in non-conference play. The Golden Eagles are now 9-7 after beating Mount Saint Mary 3-1 in the first tri-match game. The Knights meanwhile fall to 7-10 on the season.

vs. St. Joseph's College Long Island W (3-0 - 25-23, 25-18, 25-20): 

Early on in the first set, the score was knotted up at eight before the Monarchs scored eight consecutive points. Kathy Shepherd and Emma Monson each had kills while Morgan Williams served up two aces. With seven straight points, the Golden Eagles pulled within one late at 21-20. But the Monarchs scored four of the next six points, capped off by a Joy Kindall kill to take the opening set 25-23.

They found themselves trailing 6-2 early on in the next set before Keely Hoban delivered three straight service aces to tie things up. From there the teams remained neck-and-neck till they found themselves tied up at 18. 

The set saw 12 ties and eight different leads changes. The Monarchs came through big with two more aces by Williams as well as three straight kills by Shepherd and another by Monson to walk away with a 25-18 win. 

Looking to close things out in their first of two tri-matches, the Monarchs got out to an early 9-5 lead. This one they never looked back from despite a comeback effort by the Golden Eagles which brought the score to 23-19. But two late kills by Bella Salvia propelled the Monarchs to a 25-20 victory and tri-match sweep. Seven different Monarchs registered kills in the final set. 

In the match, the team served up 12 aces including six from Williams, three from Hoban and two by Devan Moses. Shepherd led the attack with 10 kills, Bella Salvia had six and Monson four. The Monarchs had 63 digs versus 52 for the Golden Eagles. 19 of those digs came from Williams while Carly Shire registered 10 and Moses nine. 

For the Golden Eagles, first year Lucianna D'Ambrosio led with 10 digs while junior Karen Barrera Carreno had 33 assists and senior Kellianne Dempsey 16 digs. 

vs. Mount Saint Mary College W (3-0 - 25-10, 25-15, 25-20):

Looking to extend their tri-match winning streak to seven games, the Monarchs went on an early 12-1 run and took the opening set in commanding fashion, 25-10. The team put up 14 kills in the set. 

In the following set, the Knights kept things close out of the gate. the Monarchs however had another early run of 13-3 to go ahead 21-9. They closed out the set with a 4-1 stretch to take the second set 25-15.

The third and final set saw some similarities to the opening one. Like the first set, the Monarchs never trailed and like the first set the team recorded 14 kills, their highest on the day. The team went on point streaks of five and seven points to dominate for the third straight set 25-12 and go a perfect 6-0 on the day for the third Saturday in a row. 

The Monarchs outplayed the Knights in every statistical category putting up 37 kills, a .277 hitting percentage, 13 aces, three blocks, 34 assists and 57 digs. Kayla Sondberg had a team-high nine kills followed by seven from Kindall and Shepherd. Salvia and Adriana Conforti delivered four service aces. Sondberg and Salvia also had a couple of blocks. Defensively, Williams led the team again with 13 digs followed by 10 from Morgan Bryant and eight by Conforti. Shire totaled 17 assists in the matchup. 

First years Erin Lema and Mackenzie Warmoth had the most kills for the Knights with six. Senior Fran Cammarata put up 16 assists and first year Jenna Cullinan had 15 digs. 

The Monarchs will continue their road trip just outside their back door on Tuesday. They will travel to Wilkes University for a 7:00 p.m matchup where they will seek their first Middle Atlantic Conference (MAC) Freedom win.