WEST CHESTER, Pa. - Coming off a pair of victories in Friday's season opening doubleheader, the Marauders didn't miss a beat in day two of their season as Millersville improved to 4-0 with a pair of convincing victories at the Ram Fest Tournament.
 
Millersville made quick work of Goldey-Beacom to start the day, outscoring the Lightning 75-38 over their three sets. The results were similar in the team's second match, as Georgian Court would only eclipse 15 points once against a Marauder defense that has helped the team win 12 out of its 13 sets of action to open the season.
VS. GOLDEY-BEACOM (25-10, 25-19, 25-9)

• Laurel Samko opened the first set of play with a kill and the Marauders never looked back, leading set one from start to finish at 'Ville picked up a 25-10 win. The Lightning responded by jumping out to a 9-2 lead in the second set. The Marauders stopped the damage there, working their way back to force a tie at 15-15 on an ace from Madison Von Neida. Leading 18-16, the Marauders would go on a six-point run to put the set out of reach and take a 2-0 advantage in the match.  The third set began with close play, but Millersville ran away after scoring 10 unanswered points to go ahead 13-4. The Marauders ended the match on an ace from Becca Dalstad, one of 13 Millersville aces in the win.
• Samko led the team in kills with eight while Emma Ludwig trailed with seven. Dalstad (12) and Ludwid (11) both recorded double-digit digs. Von Neida and Mya Cascario tied for the team lead in aces with three each. Ludwig led the offense with 25 assists.

VS. GEORGIAN COURT (25-21, 25-14, 25-11)

• Set one proved to be the closest of the doubleheader for the Marauders, with the Lions leading as late as 18-17 in the set. After another Samko kill tied the set at 18-18, the Marauders would rattle off six of the next eight points, going ahead 24-20. Redshirt Junior Kylie Airesman ended the set with a kill to put 'Ville ahead 1-0. The second set was all Millersville early on, as the Marauders recorded three different streaks of four or more points to take an 18-5 lead. A late Georgian push closed the gap, but with a comfortable lead the Lions never threatened. Leading the third set 17-11 the Marauders closed the weekend in dominant fashion, scoring the final eight points in a row to earn their second shutout victory of the day and third of the tournament.
• Rose Vail led the team in kills with 10, while Samko (9) and Airesman (7) both had strong performances. The team recorded another 13 aces from the service line, led by Dalstad (5) and Caroline Halsey who had four. Ludwig was the lone defender with double digit digs as she recorded 15 digs to go along with 27 assists. 

NOTES

• Millersville is now 4-0 to open a season for the first time since 2017, when the Marauders began their campaign with a 7-0 start.
• The Marauders are now 18-0 all time against Goldey-Beacom and 4-0 against Georgian Court. 

REACTION FROM HEAD COACH BRIAN SMITH

• On the energy from the team: "Winning is motivating so a good start on day one gave us confidence and energy today.  We felt very good about our wins, and we had to play some good volleyball to get that done."
• Overall takeaways from the tournament: "We committed early in preseason to running a fast tempo offense. We executed that well and it really showed in our Franklin Pierce win on day one. FP was much larger than we are. We also knew to compete with bigger teams we had to serve and pass well, better than our opponents. We out served and out passes teams all weekend."
• On the team's defensive efforts: "I think our defense is very disciplined this year, good amount of experience and we have depth if someone struggles. We need to keep working on our blocking.  With spending so much time of preseason working on offensive timing we have pretty much allowed our strong back row defense to just do what they are good at. We will try to fine tune that some in the coming weeks. But we are really solid. Moving forward we will focus on things we can control and work to improve. We can't do anything about being smaller, we will use our speed, hard work and team chemistry and go out and compete.  We learned a lot this week. I think we are excited to get back on the practice court and get working on things."

UP NEXT

• The Marauders open the home portion of their schedule Friday, Sept. 2 against Chestnut Hill at 4 p.m. as part of the Marauder Clash. The team will play a total of four matches over the two-day tournament hosted in Pucillo Gymnasium.