The Malone University volleyball team secured a Senior Night victory over visiting Ohio Valley University Friday in Osborne Hall. The 25-21, 21-25, 25-17, 25-15 triumph marked the second-straight for the Pioneers, who improved to 16-11 on the season and 10-5 in the Great Midwest Athletic Conference. The 16 wins on the year marks Malone's highest single-season total since going 23-13 in 2012.
 
Prior to the start of Friday night's match, the Pioneers honored their lone senior Julia Marino
 
Recap
Malone seemed to be in control of the match early on, opening up a 17-12 lead midway through the first set, but a 6-0 OVU run put the Fighting Scots ahead by one. Kills by Brooklyn Sullivan and Veronica Gehring allowed the Pioneers to regain the lead before the Scots evened it up at 19-19 on a Malone service error. Following a Ohio Valley service error, Malone pulled away on the strength of three more Gehring kills, an Abbie Swaino surprise kill, and a OVU ballhandling error off of a Marino serve to take a 1-0 edge.
 
Ohio Valley tied it up at a set apiece with its own 25-21 victory in the second stanza. Following kills by Gehring and Sullivan that tied the set at 11-11, OVU put together a 4-0 run to make it 15-11. The Pioneers failed to come within two points for the remainder of the set as they went to intermission deadlocked 1-1.
 
Malone regrouped at the break and began the third set on a 9-2 run that eventually turned into a 20-9 lead. The Fighting Scots managed to put together a 6-0 streak that made it 20-15, but back-to-back kills by Faith Lau and a third from Sullivan helped Malone secure the set.
 
The final set saw the two teams tied at 7-7 early on, but the Pioneers began to chip away, taking advantage of a number of Ohio Valley ballhandling errors. With the score 24-15 at the end of the set, a Julia Marino service ace fittingly brought the match to a close. Marino finished the match with five digs and two service aces in front of an excitable Senior Night crowd.
 
Veronica Gehring led Malone with 13 kills in the four-set victory, reaching double-digit kills for the second-straight match. Faith Lau added 10 kills while Brooklyn Sullivan and Mallory Adams evenly split 12. Sullivan's six kills marked a season-high. Elizabeth Selleny and Abbie Swaino dished out 19 and 17 assists respectively.
 
Adams and Hannah Eliason each posted four blocks to lead the Pioneer defense. Maggie Hamrock totaled 16 digs to lead the back row while Lau chipped in with nine. Hamrock now has 399 digs on the season and is 10 digs away from 1,000 in her career.
 
Up Next
Hamrock will have the chance to reach 1,000 digs on Saturday when the Pioneers host Alderson Broaddus at 2:00 pm.