Raiders roll to victory over Mass.-Dartmouth

(Dartmouth, MA) Rivier College (17-13 overall; 12-1 GNAC), defeated U-Mass Dartmouth in 3 straight sets 25-18, 25-19, 25-18 to improve to 4 games over 500 for the season. The Raiders, winners of 12 of their last 14 matches, started off a bit slow in set one but kept it close enough for Nicole Boucher (Salem, NH) and Emileigh Cenedella (Townsend, MA) to take control late in the set with strong serving. In set two Rivier jumped out to an early 11 point lead behind Lauren Saccoccio's (Warwick, RI) 6 point serving run and never looked back. In set three UMD had control early in the game forcing Rivier to battle just to keep it close at 16-18 before Kenna Finlayson (Derry, NH) went on a 9 point serving run to close out the set and match.

Back row specialists Cenedella, Caitie Callahan (Dedham, MA), and Jess Amaral (E. Providence, RI) passed well all match and combined for 24 digs and 7 ace serves to pace Rivier. Finlayson put away 16 kills and in the process broke the Raider all time record for kills in a season (previously held by Finlayson) with 493 kills. Boucher was solid with 9 kills, 3 ace serves, 3 digs, and 1 block while Saccoccio dished out 26 assists and scooped up 8 digs. Meghan Farrell (Marlborough, MA) and Nicole Peacock (Warwick, RI) chipped in with 3 kills each.

Rivier College 3 25 25 25

UMD 0 18 19 18

Rivier will return home on Saturday October 29 for their last regular season matches of the year. Westfield State will challenge Rivier at 11:00am followed by a Senior Day extravaganza at 3:00pm against Massachusetts Maritime Academy.