Roanoke, VA - The Hollins University volleyball team took to their home court for the final time this season as they played host to Salem College in a rematch of an earlier Hollins victory.  Senior co-captains Jessie Deese (Cary, NC) and Lauren Hays (Saginaw, TX) were honored prior to the opening serve.  Both Deese and Hays are four year players and have served as team captains for the past three seasons after being part of the Hollins team that earned a berth in the ODAC Tournament in 2011, Hollins first appearance since 1992.

Hollins had defeated the Spirits in fairly easy fashion back on September 24th and were looking to celebrate "Senior Night" in style.  However, Salem had different ideas and jumped on their hosts in the early going.  The visitors raced out to a 9-4 lead in the opening set, forcing an early Hollins timeout.  Hollins regrouped and started to chip away at the Spirits lead.  Trailing 13-10 Hollins appeared poised to get back into the match but Salem scored six of the next nine points to push their advantage to six points.  As the first set came to a close, Hollins realized that they were facing a much different Salem team than the one that they had handled less than four weeks ago.  Trailing 1-0, Hollins needed to wrestle the momentum away from the Spirits but Salem once again enjoyed an early lead, 8-5.  Hollins rallied to win the next five points and force their opponent to take a timeout.  After the brief break, Salem returned the favor by winning five consecutive and retaking the lead.  The match would remain close but a late Salem run gave the visitors from the south a 2-0 lead.     

After taking a 10 minute break between sets, the two foes were back on the court and this time it was Hollins that was able to race out to an early lead, 3-0.  The home team pushed the lead to 8-4 but four straight Salem points tied the score.  Hollins rattled off three in a row to retake the lead but once again the visitors came storming back.  The third set went back and forth with both teams enjoying multiple runs as Hollins led 16-15.  It was the last time Hollins would enjoy the lead as the Spirits scored 10 for the matches final 14 points to take the set, 25-20, and the match, 3-0.

Hays came into her final home match with 810 career kills and added 12 more to her total.  Rikki Martinez (Corpus Christi, TX) recorded six kills while fellow junior Jordan Persinger (New Castle, VA) added five.  Deese ended her final home match with four kills, eight digs, and a pair of blocks.  Juniors Emily Lowther (Woodbridge, VA) and Haley Ortiz (Portsmouth, VA) each added 10 digs while first year Samantha Billups (Zuni, VA) led the team in assists, 24, and digs, 14.

First year Kylie Taffer missed the first match with Hollins but the middle returned with a match high 14 kills and three blocks.  Hillary McPhatter added nine kills and 15 digs while Bernisha Masters controlled the net, accounting for six of the Spirits nine blocks.  Setter Taylor Rhodes handed out 32 helpers and Zy Henderson registered a match high 19 digs.

Hollins will now look to get back on track as the end their season with a seven match road trip.  Cross town rival Roanoke College is the first stop for a Hollins team in desperate need of conference victories.  Hollins will battle the Maroons on Tuesday night at 6:30pm.