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PRINCESS ANNE, Maryland - For the second straight night the Hawks volleyball team struggled to find their groove, and coupled with an efficient charge by the visiting Midshipmen, Maryland Eastern Shore fell in straight sets to the United States Naval Academy (13-25, 14-25, 19-25) on Saturday night in Princess Anne.

Navy improves to 3-1 with the win and the Hawks fall to 4-2.

Maryland Eastern Shore had trouble on the attack throughout the match, but senior Mere Serea (Suva, Fiji) was able to supply six kills against two errors on 10 attempts for a 40% success rate. Freshman Ivana Blazevic (Zagreb, Croatia) led with 17 assists and sophomore Zuzana Ondruskova (Bilovec, Czech Republic) tallied nine digs. Sophomore Marta Klafuric (Donja Lomnica, Croatia) posted three block assists.

The Midshipmen were paced by Gaby Smith, who supplied nine kills and a 40% success rate to go along with seven digs, three block assists and two aces. As a team Navy converted over a quarter of their attacks successfully.

The visitors from Annapolis were also aided to victory, particularly early, by an uncharacteristically large amount of errors by the Hawks-39 of them in total. 16 of those errors came on serves. Maryland Eastern Shore was able to push for a comeback in the third set, but Navy responded with a 7-0 run to complete the three set sweep.

On Saturday the Hawks will try to regroup with a pair of matches. At 11 a.m., the Hawks will take on South Carolina State, followed by a 7 p.m. match with Rider. $5 admission will get you in for both matches. The morning match will be called by Ricky Pollitt on sfmsports.net and the evening match will be live streamed on the Eastern Shore Hawks YouTube page.