Wolf Pack dominates Blue Mountain Christian Saturday

BLUE MOUNTAIN, Miss. – The Loyola Wolf Pack capped off a 2-0 weekend with a crucial win at Blue Mountain Christian on Saturday, sweeping the Toppers to move their record to 17-6 overall and 6-2 in the Southern States Athletic Conference. 
 

After two weeks away from The Den, Loyola will return home next weekend for two league matchups. It'll take on Mobile on Friday at 6 p.m. and Faulkner on Saturday at 1 p.m. 
 

Loyola created the separation it needed early in the first set. Clarissa Dupree picked up a couple of kills, Alexa Palmer tallied one, and Kala Emanuelli served an ace in the early going. Isis Harink and Ivana De Carvalho Peixe both got in on the attack, 7-3, and Peixe's first kill was hit so hard it hit off the ceiling after a BMCU player tried to record the dig. A couple of points later, a Juliet Petruzelli ace prompted a Blue Mountain Christian timeout, 14-7. A 5-0 run for Loyola made it a 19-9 lead, and the Pack cruised to the first-set win. 
 

The second set was a little closer, but Loyola didn't have any problems putting the set away once it went up 9-5. Palmer had two kills during that opening stretch, then Katy Hollingsworth and Dupree each picked up two kills in the set to make it a 12-8 lead. With the score 20-12, the Toppers tried to make a comeback, but Loyola put it away with the help of two kills from Palmer, one from Pexie, an ace by Petruzelli, and a block by Harink and Palmer. 
 

Samantha Guillotte joined Harink and Dupree on the attack to help Loyola start off strong in the third set, 7-3. Guillotte added two more kills a couple of points later, 9-5, then a 7-0 run, really put the Pack in a good position for the three-set sweep, 17-9. Dupree got a couple more kills, and Palmer, Harink, and Peixe all found the floor one more time to seal the win.
 

Pack Facts

• Clarissa Dupree tied a season-high with 10 kills on Saturday. She had no attacking errors on 22 total attempts with a .455 hit percentage. 

• Dupree has 29 kills in the last three matches. (nine sets; 3.22 k/s).

• Ivana De Carvalho Peixe led the team with a .462 hit percentage. The graduate student has now hit better than .400 in the last three matches. 

• Peixe recorded seven kills on 13 attempts. 

• Alexa Palmer (.304) and Isis Harink (.316) made it four Wolf Pack student-athletes with hit percentages better than .300. Palmer had nine kills on 23 attempts and Harink had seven kills on 19 attempts. 

• Ellie Connor led the team with 18 assists, topping her previous three-set best for the season that was set last night at UT Southern. Belén Puche Laguna added 13 in Loyola's 6-2 rotation. 

• Loyola, which leads the SSAC in service aces per set, notched seven aces against the Toppers. That's the 17th time this season the Wolf Pack has reached at least seven service aces in a match. Ten of those matches have been three-setters. 

• Juliet Petruzelli led the team with four aces, which is her second-best output of the season. 

• The Wolf Pack recorded eight total blocks (16 block assists) in the match, matching the second-best performance of the season. Katy Hollingsworth, Harink, and Palmer each had four block assists. 

• Kala Emanuelli led the team with 18 digs to give her an SSAC-leading 389 total digs this season. 

Subscribe to Pack Tracks, a Loyola Athletics Newsletter, for all of the latest information >> https://loyolawolfpack.com/subscribe.aspx. You can also keep up with the Pack by following Wolf Pack Athletics on Facebook at Facebook.com/LoyolaWolfPack, Twitter and Instagram @LoyolaWolfPack, and by checking out our website at LoyolaWolfPack.com.