After spending the entire match on the wrong side of domination, Maryland volleyball seemed primed for an improbable set three comeback, but a definitive block from the Hoosiers’ front row slammed the door shut.
With the score 20-22, Maryland had won four straight points and was looking strong. Indiana’s Ella Boersma had other ideas, though, rising up to meet Ava Brown’s hit attempt and stifle the Terps’ momentum. Maryland quickly fell in the third set, sealing the weekend of sweeps.
Maryland volleyball
is now off to a rough start in the Big Ten slate, opening league play at 0-2. It comes as astark contrast to nonconference competition, in which Maryland recorded nine sweeps of its own.
The Terps got off to a rocky start with an opening service error from Elayna Davidson and a mishit from Brown. The Hoosiers took advantage of errors by the uncoordinated Terps to open the match with an 11-4 run. By the first media timeout, more than half of the Hoosiers’ 15 points stemmed from errors by the Terps. If not foreight costly errors, the Terps would have been deadlocked with Indiana.
Head coach Adam Hughes followed with a timeout of his own, the result of which appeared promising, as Brown killed a ball from Sara Toth to ignite a three-point streak. Unfortunately for Maryland, its early errors proved too disastrous to disregard. Though the second half of the set was tit-for-tat, the Terps couldn’t close the gap. The Hoosiers took the first set by the margin of Maryland’s opening blunders, 25-17. Take away those early-game stumbles, and the match would have been tied at 17.
The Terps dove into the second set eager to bounce back from their first-set lapses as Brown capitalized on another Toth assist and Teodora Kričković mis-hit a serve to level the score at two all. Eva Rohrbach miscalculated two swings that sparked a run for Indiana, allowing the Hoosiers to pull away. Emma Segal began to heat up on the service line, forcing Hughes into a timeout at 4-9.
Toth locked in after the break with a kill to halt Segal’s service stint before feeding her freshman outside hitters Brown and Brooklynne Brass, who both capitalized off the setter’s distribution. Maryland held on, trailing just five points going into the second-set media timeout. Just like its predecessor, the second set saw the Terps fail to surge back. The referees awarded a controversial kill to Keondreya Granberry that put the Hoosiers up, 20-13. Hughes was unhappy with the decision that dampened hopes for the Terps to storm back and take the second frame.
Maryland shot itself in the foot down the stretch, gift-wrapping Indiana four of the last five points of the set through errors. At match point, the Terps looked for Brass to catch heat from the baseline to trigger a late-set comeback, but an intense rally led to Marlee Sivak facing a disrespectful rejection at the net from the Hoosiers’ front line. Maryland dropped the second set, 18-25.
Kričković showed no remorse in opening the final set for the Hoosiers. Typically distributing balls for Indiana, the setter capitalized on a dish from Hannah Leftridge to log her first kill of the set. Kričković followed her attack with an ace before feeding Sara Snowbarger for a kill that emphasized the hunger of the Hoosiers — an early 6-1 lead forced Hughes to burn another timeout.
Boersma earned three straight kills in a late-game takeover, each of the three coming from Kričković to open up a six-point margin. Brown responded with two of her own, giving Maryland hope at 18-22. Boersema’s fire was put out with a brutal rejection from Sivak, cutting the deficit to two points as the Terps looked poised for a late-set resurgence.
Sivak’s block failed to stop the driving force the Hoosiers’ front row had been. Brown’s attack was met with rejection to stifle the Terps’ energy. Grandberry hit a successful attack, succeeded by a game-deciding stuff block to grant the Hoosiers the third set, 20-25.
Three things to know
1. Errors, errors, errors. Maryland logged 19 attack errors compared to Indiana’s 11. Errors were the beginning of the Terps’ downfall, as they opened up margins the Terps couldn’t storm back to close. However, making errors wasn’t the only problem Maryland had. Indiana wasn’t free of faults either, but it was able to maintain control of the game because of Maryland’s failure to take advantage of its blunders.
2. Absent attackers. Sydney Bryant and Haley Melby’s presence was missed in the Terps’ attacking core. With the two veteran outside hitters sidelined due to injury, the Terps have relied on freshmen attackers to dive right into conference play and take on a scoring load that they have never seen before at this level. Maryland’s hitting percentage fell to a woeful .178 in Saturday’s match.
3. Rough road trips. The Terps are 5-0 at home this season, with all three of their losses coming in front of away crowds. Indiana’s student section whipped itself into a frenzy when the Terps seemed to be gaining momentum. Maryland returns to College Park to play four straight matches in front of home fans and will look to bounce back from a rough start in the Big Ten.
