Cortland, NY — The State University of New York at New Paltz women's volleyball team suffered a 3-0 loss on the road to first place SUNY Cortland Friday.
 
The Hawks dropped to 9-10 overall and 4-2 in SUNYAC play, while the Red Dragons won their 12th-straight game and improved to 17-2 and 6-0, respectively.
 
SUNY New Paltz kept the first set close to start, but a 7-0 run from Cortland broke the first open and the hosts held on to a commanding 17-7, 10-point cushion. The Hawks rallied back to five at 20-15 followed by kills from Makenzie Bills, sandwiched between an ace from Letisha Perez, but the Red Dragons answered to score four of the next five points to get to set point. A pair of attacking errors from Nicole Van Pelt and a kill by Mackenzie Williams cut the deficit, 24-19 for SUNY New Paltz, but the Red Dragons ended any hopes of a remarkable rally with a kill from Maya Owens to take a 1-0 lead.
 
In similar fashion, Cortland went on a 4-0 unanswered run after the score was initially tied at seven and forced the Hawks to call a timeout, but the Red Dragons continued to roll and held their largest lead of the set at 21-14. Back-to-back kills by Victoria Konicki got SUNY New Paltz back in reach, but Cortland answered once again with three-straight points to get to set point. Camilla Jensen and Konicki kept the stanza alive with consecutive kills for SUNY New Paltz, but Alexa Guedez finished the second with a kill and gave Cortland a 2-0 lead. 
Williams put away a kill on an assist from Cate DiGiacomo to cut the score to 12-10 in favor of the Red Dragons in the middle of the third, but Cortland then went on a 7-0 stretch to put themselves in position for the sweep.
 
The Red Dragons held match point at 24-15, but a serving error, an attacking error and an ace from Nicole Cooke put the Hawks in position to try and steal the set away until Southcott ended the match with a kill to finish the third, 25-18 in favor of Cortland.
 
After a rough start offensively, SUNY New Paltz hit a solid .235 in the second and .240 in the third set to finish with a .160 hitting percentage. However, that couldn't best the Red Dragons who hit .374 in the game with 46 kills.
 
Konicki led the Hawks with 13 kills and 13.5 points, while hitting .292. Williams followed with 11 kills and 11.5 points, hitting .304 and adding a block and six digs to her stat line. DiGiacomo finished with 34 assists to go along with an ace and six digs.
 
SUNY New Paltz is back in action Saturday when it travels to Oswego to take on the Lakers at 1 p.m.

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