Oct. 23, 2009

Box Score | Photo Gallery

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Seniors Whitney Johnson (Prince Frederick, Md.) and Caylin Woodward (Garden Grove, Calif.) tallied 12 and 11 kills, respectively, as the University of Maryland Eastern Shore volleyball team remained unbeaten in MEAC competition with a 3-0 (25-19, 25-10, 25-17) victory over Howard at Burr Gymnasium Friday.

With the win, its seventh straight and third consecutive sweep, UMES improved to 16-6 overall and 5-0 in the conference. Howard fell to 6-23 and 2-3 in MEAC play.

The Hawks registered a season-high 17 service aces and sophomore Zoe Bowens (Long Beach, Calif.) collected a career-best five of those as UMES also outhit the Bison, .436-.233.

Johnson had four aces, two digs and two block assists on the night while Woodward also had three aces, two assists and two digs. Sophomore Christine Edwards (Lakewood, Calif.) and senior Thonya Joseph (Bridgetown, Barbados) recorded six kills apiece.

Freshman Bella Jade Romero (Arlington, Texas) was two digs shy of a double-double with 38 assist and eight digs to go along with a block assist and a .600 hitting percentage. As a team, UMES committed just nine attack errors on 78 total attacks.

UMES also held Howard's top hitter Gazelle D'Artois, a three-time MEAC Player of the Week, largely in check. D'Artois had four kills on 11 attacks for a .182 hitting percentage. She also had six assists and four digs.

Leading, 10-5, at the first timeout of the first game, the Hawks tallied four of the next eight points to take a 14-9 advantage before Howard was able to battle back and tie things at 14-14, a run that was punctuated by a block assist from Tosin Elebute and Keri Partridge.

After a Hawks' timeout, Bowens served an ace that gave UMES a 19-16 edge, a lead it would relinquish the rest of the game. UMES earned a six-point victory on an attack error from Howard's Taylor Johnson.

UMES led the entire way in the second game with a nine-point advantage at 13-4 on a Romero ace. The Hawks built a 23-9 lead on a Samantha Chukwura (Brooklyn, N.Y.) kill and closed the game on another Bowens ace. Chukwura had five kills on the night.

UMES erased an early 5-2 deficit in the third game. Johnson gave the Hawks the lead for good at 10-9 with a kill from Romero. Howard was limited to just eight points for the rest of the match.

For the Bison, Elebute tallied a team-high 10 kills while Jasmine King had 15 assists and Nicole Brown had nine digs.

The Hawks return home Sunday to take on Morgan State Sunday at 3 p.m.