Maryland volleyball tied Rutgers in kills, digs and assists on Saturday night, but the Terps won in straight sets due to their dominant serving performance.
Maryland had seven more service aces and six fewer service errors than the Scarlet Knights. It was the first time since Sept. 21 the Terps had more aces than service errors, allowing them to grab their first Big Ten win of the season.
“We’re always trying to find this balance. If some people are aggressive, some people are more spot location, changing speeds,” coach Adam Hughes said. “We found a pretty good balance of that tonight.”
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Graduate student Samantha Schnitta led the team with five aces. She recorded crucial back-to-back ones to halt a Scarlet Knights run and extend Maryland’s lead to four, paving the way for it to take a commanding 2-0 set lead.
The pin hitter leads the Big Ten with 52 aces, a major reason why Maryland leads the conference in that measure with 127.
“She’s really dialed herself, and I think the fear is gone,” Hughes said. “When you first start this process, sometimes you’re so worried about making errors and you feel that at matches … you kind of have to go through that.”
Maryland struggled offensively against a Rutgers squad near the bottom of the conference in blocks and digs per set, making its effective serving even more crucial.
The Terps hit .159 in the victory, their lowest mark since Aug. 30. The team’s three leading killers — Bryant, Schnitta and Csire — combined for 15 attacking errors while each hit .250 or below.
But Maryland’s team-wide serving excellence helped it overcome all the offensive struggles. Three different Terps had at least two aces for the first time since Sept. 21.
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“I thought they were really good at changing speeds,” Hughes said. “We talked about having good lines and clearing the tape very close, and everyone was dialed to that.”
Sydney Dowler and Ally Williams each recorded two aces to tie respective season-highs. Both of them did it without any service errors, a consistency that forced Rutgers to earn points throughout the match.
The Scarlet Knights committed service errors of their own — an Alissa Kinkela blunder lost them the first set just as they had rallied for four points in a row.
“When you serve well out of the gate, you put pressure on the other team, to see if they’re going to recover from that,” Hughes said. “In the first set, they had to switch who was passing, and it changes your rotations and how you run offensive routes.”
Maryland’s next contest is against No. 9 Wisconsin on Friday. The pressure will be higher on its servers in a hostile environment against a top team, but if the Terps can serve like they did on Saturday, they could notch the program’s biggest win in years.
