Box Score Boxscore

PURCHASE, N.Y. – For the Manhattanville women's volleyball team, Wednesday night's non-conference match against Lehman was beginning to look mighty familiar. As the Valiants did the night before against Wilkes, the Valiants had gone to five sets and built a late lead, only to see the opposition come storming back.

Tonight, however, the home team authored a different ending.

Instead, it was the Valiants that made the final stand of the night, as Manhattanville staved off two match points and scored five of the match's last six points to pull off a thrilling 3-2 (25-18, 20-25, 24-26, 25-15, 17-15) victory over the Lightning on Wednesday night at Kennedy Gymnasium.

Senior Makana Gomes (Honolulu, Hawaii/'Iolani) had another great outing with her second straight triple-double, leading the team with 16 kills on .295 hitting and also adding 11 assists and 19 digs. With her 19 digs, Gomes becomes Manhattanville's all-time leader in digs with 1,084, surpassing the previous record of 1,073 set by Jamie Kriksciun '99 – and doing so in 16 fewer sets as well.

But it was a total team effort in the win, as the Valiants primarily stuck to a seven-person rotation and received contributions from all seven. Senior Ally Johnson (Branford, Conn./Branford) had a good overall match with 10 digs, nine kills and a match-best five aces, while classmate Damaris Morales (Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic/Colegio San Jose) added 23 digs and fellow senior Maggie Black (Seattle, Wash./The Center School) had an efficient five kills. Sophomore Susy Camaj (Lagrangeville, N.Y./Millbrook) was also a key contributor offensively, posting 13 kills and hitting .323 in helping the team to the win. Freshmen Veronica Ferreiras (Rockville Centre, N.Y./Malverne) and Delmer also chipped in, as Ferreiras led the team with 30 assists and Delmer had a match-high 29 digs.

For Lehman, Gerri-Ann Martin had a match-high 22 kills on 68 attempts, while Shari Quiles added 16 kills and 25 digs and Jasmine Bermudez posted 47 assists as well for the visitors.

Manhattanville was efficient offensively on the night, as the home team recorded 48 kills and just 16 errors in 179 attempts (.179 hitting). Conversely, Lehman had a bunch more kills (62) but also a lot more errors (33), and those hitting mistakes ultimately cost them the match in the fifth set.

Yet again the victory came down to a fifth set between the Valiants and Lightning, and the script followed much along the lines of last night's five-setter. Manhattanville scored four straight points to take a 9-5 lead in the final stanza, only to see Lehman come back to tie the score at 10. Tied at 12, the visitors scored two straight to give themselves a pair of match points, but a Shari Quiles attack error and a clutch service ace from freshman Sam Delmer (Boise, Idaho/Eagle) kept the Valiants alive. After not converting on their first match point chance, Manhattanville benefited from another Quiles error before sophomore Susy Camaj (Lagrangeville, N.Y./Millbrook) put down the match-winner to give the Valiants the hard-fought victory.

Before the deciding frame, Manhattanville's best set of the match came with the team down 2-1, as the home team came out strong to take the fourth set easily, 25-15. In the set, the Valiants put down 17 kills with just two errors (.366), led by five kills each from Camaj and Gomes and four for Johnson. The team also performed well in the third set, hitting just one error as a team on 40 attempts, but the squad wasted two set points and allowed the visitors to score the final four points and take a one-set lead.

But thanks to some late-match heroics, the Valiants left Kennedy Gym with their 13th victory of the year, the most in a season since the 2001 squad went 13-8 and won the Skyline Conference regular-season title.

Manhattanville (13-12) will look to keep the momentum going on Friday night, as the Valiants continue Senior Week with a 6 p.m. matchup against Sarah Lawrence at Kennedy Gym in a match that will be video streamed live on GoValiants.TV starting at 5:55 p.m. Lehman (11-8) will next take part in the William Paterson tri-match starting Saturday at 11 a.m.