CANTON, N.Y.  –  The Oswego State Volleyball team won their first contest of the 2023 season this evening against a worthy opponent in the Saints of St. Lawrence out of the Liberty League. 

THE BASICS

Final Score:

Set 1 Oswego 25, St. Lawrence 21 

Set 2 St. Lawrence 26, Oswego 24 

Set 3 St. Lawrence 25, Oswego 20 

Set 4 Oswego 25, St. Lawrence 15  

Set 5 Oswego 15 , St. Lawrence 12

Location: Canton, N.Y. 

HOW IT HAPPENED

• Rally after rally, the Lakers and Saints went at each other in the first set, after a kill by Georgia Farry, the Lakers took the late lead at 21-20. 

• Oswego served one into the net to put the set back at 21-21 and then three different Lakers scored to finish the set and take it 25-21. 

• Olivia Bunn, Sydney Chiffriller and Farry all contributed to those final three points to secure the set. 

• Set two was more of the same, both teams at each other on the offensive side of the ball. 

• The set saw 11 ties and the Lakers had a deficit to cut down, finding themselves down 18-13 in the set. 

• The Lakers scored six straight points to tie the set at 19 a side. 

• Chiffriller scored on three consecutive plays for the Lakers, one with a block and two kills following that, bringing the Green and Gold ahead 23-22. 

• The Saints would go on to take advantage of the Lakers' mistakes, scoring four of five of the next points to take the 26-24 set win. Two of these being errors on the Lakers offensive side of the ball. 

• Going into the third set with one set for each side, the Lakers found themselves down big 11-3. 

• By the time the Lakers found their groove, the Saints were up by nine points. 

• Oswego went on to score nine of the next twelve points, to bring the set back to a three-point difference (20-17) in favor of the Saints. 

• With three point rallies going to the Saints first and then the Lakers, again the Saints won the set with two offensive errors on the Lakers behalf, taking the set 25-20. 

• Oswego came out with a different attitude in the fourth set, knowing it was time to get some points on the board. 

• The Lakers were up 6-3 in the set, showing no signs of slowing down. 

• At one point in the set, Oswego was up on 18-8. 

• St. Lawrence was not able to string together anything more than a three point rally to bring the set within five points (21-16) in favor of the Lakers. 

• Oswego dealt the Saints some of their own medicine, earning two of their final four points to close out the set on offensive errors on the Saints side of the ball this time. 

• The fifth set took form of the first two sets of the contest, back-and-forth. 

• The Saints were up two (12-10) in the tie-breaking set before the Lakers took the next five points to secure the match and set 15-12. Emily Zeisler scored the final two points on serving aces. 

• Points of emphasis for this contest were Oswego having 12 blocks to the Saints' five, this was a huge difference maker down the stretch. 

• Oswego had two more aces than the Saints at 12 compared to St. Lawrence's 10. 

• The Lakers had a hitting percentage of 15.4% while the Saints had a hitting percentage of 11.4%. 

• Oswego also cleaned up their errors compared to their first three games, having 23 compared to the Saints' 31. 

• Farry and Cara Simplicio both finished the contest with 11 kills. Chiffriller and Gdovin both had seven. 

• Farry led the Lakers in hit percentage with a whopping 62.5% success rate. 

WHAT'S NEXT

The Lakers will continue their North Country classic against the Hamilton Continentals on September 9th at 11:00am. This will be a test for the Lakers as they will have now played two competitive teams out of competitive conferences in St. Lawrence out of the Liberty League and Hamilton out of the NESCAC. 

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