Senior Kara Branz and Family

Senior Abby Means and Family

PHILADELPHIA, PA - It was senior day at Tom Gola Arena Saturday afternoon when the La Salle Explorer volleyball swept the George Washington Colonials by scores of 30-25, 30-26, 30-24 to give the Explorers their first Atlantic 10 victory of the season.  This marked the first time since the Explorers joined the A-10 that they defeated the Colonials.  The win also gave La Salle its 10th win of the season to stand at 10-18 and 1-10, while George Washington drops to 10-15 and 3-8.

Freshman Jackie Kushman set the tone in game one, dropping eight kills on the Colonials.  The Explorers jumped out to an early 7-1 lead, and never let it go.  George Washington closed the gap to three at 20-17, but the Explorers responded with a Kushman kill and then scored the next two points.  La Salle called a timeout when it got to within three again at 24-21, but the Explorers would not relinquish the lead and claimed a 30-25 win for just there second game win in conference play this season.

The Explorers got the first point in game two, but fell behind 2-1.  Not wanting to give up the second game, La Salle took a two-point lead at 7-5, but that would be short lived as the Colonials battled back and took the lead at 8-7.  After two more lead changes, the Colonials seemed poised to win the game, but La Salle had other ideas, knotting the score at 24 and 25 before taking the lead at 26-25.  That was all the Explorers needed as they closed out game two 30-26 and took a 2-0 advantage into the intermission.

Game three seemed to be going La Salle's way with an early 6-3 lead, but as GW closed the gap to within one at 9-8, the Explorers called a timeout to regroup and then traded points with the Colonials until the 21-20 mark.  At this points, the Explorers earned back-to-back points to get a three point lead at 23-20 and that put the game away.  La Salle outscored GW down the stretch 7-4 to earn their first conference win of the season.

Kushman posted a match-high 18 kills to lead the Explorers and fellow freshman Christa Dominick landed 10 kills as the freshman duo got the job done to give seniors Kara Branz and Abby Means a victory in front of their families on Senior Day. Setter Caitlin Conner assisted on 38 of La Salle's 50 kills in the match.

Branz got the job done at the net, with two solo and three assisted blocks to go along with Dominick's two solo and two assisted blocks.  Also on defense, libero Carolyn Judge tied a match-best 23 digs, while Kushman finished with another double-double adding 18 digs and Stephanie Owen chipped in 16 digs.

The Colonials got 13 kills from Abigail Hatter and 11 kills from Juliene McLaughlin to pace their offense.  Setter Kaiman Lee tallied 25 assists.

On defense for George Washington, Janine Brown matched Judge's 23 digs and Jessica Vesey added 15 in the loss.

The Explorers will look for win number 11 on November 8th when they play their last road game of the season against Bucknell at 7:00 p.m.