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Saints Hand Raiders First GNAC Loss, Andreozzi Reaches Milestone
Boston, MA - #6 Rivier College (8-1 GNAC; 19-5 overall) was defeated by Emmanuel College 3-1 in a Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) battle on Tuesday night. In the eight year history between these two programs, this was Emmanuel's first-ever win over Rivier. The Raiders had won 17 straight matches over the Saints before dropping the 3-1 decision on Tuesday night. Emmanuel (16-7) and Rivier (19-5) are now tied for 1st place in the conference standings with one GNAC loss apiece.
In the first set both teams battled to a 16-16 tie; Rivier then committed 2 unforced errors and Emmanuel served an ace to give the home team a lead that would eventually balloon to 8 points for a 30-22 win.
Rivier created a 15-11 lead in set 2 only to find themselves needing to rally to win 30-28.
The Saints pulled out to a 7-5 lead early on in the third set, before back-to-back kills by Rivier tied it at 7 apiece. The Saints opened up a 4 point lead at 16-12 and never looked back for a 30-24 win.
Much like the third set, the fourth featured several lead changes in the early going before Emmanuel went up 13-11. Rivier was able to keep it close at 24-21 but a Raider ball handling error, followed by a hitting error, brought the score to 26-21. Two more unforced errors by Riv put the spread at 28-22 and the set out of reach at 30-23.
Junior Jared Andreozzi scored 13 kills and became just the 6th Raider in program history to reach 1,000 kills in a career. Taylor Lindner and Matt Ferreira had 13 and 11 kills respectively while Ferreira put back a team high 4 blocks. Senior Zach Hansen dished out 45 assists and senior Kyle O'Neill had a team high 12 digs off the bench.
#6 Rivier College 1 22 30 24 23
Emmanuel College 3 30 28 30 30
Rivier will continue GNAC play at Emerson College on Thursday 3/4 at 7pm.
