HUNTINGDON, Pa.- The #9 Juniata women's volleyball team swept past the University of Scranton, 3-0 (25-20, 25-19, 25-23), to win their 40th consecutive conference championship and 14th straight Landmark Championship, Saturday evening in a raucous Memorial Gymnasium.
The Royals scored the first point of the match, but Victoria Taylor (Middletown, Del. / Delaware Military Academy) responded with a massive swing from the right side to tie the score at 1-1. The teams traded points before three Royal errors, and a kill from Mackenzie Coley (Norco, Calif. / Norco HS) made it 6-2. Juniata led by as many as seven, but Scranton managed to narrow the JC lead back to three at 14-11. Grace Erskine (Mooresville, N.C. / Community School of Davidson) tallied back-to-back kills push the lead back to five. After a Scranton kill, Lily Podolan (Columbus, Ohio / Worthington Kilbourne) mashed two kills around another Royal error to make it 19-12. Scranton called timeout but kills from Aly Reardon (Downingtown, Pa. / Downingtown West HS), and Olivia Foley (Coldwater, Mich / Coldwater HS) made it 22-14. Scranton got back within four and fought off set point several times in the process to make it 24-20 as JC called timeout. Taylor ended the set coming out of the timeout with another mammoth kill.
Juniata jumped ahead 7-2 early and nursed the lead to 14-9. A Foley kill and an ace from Reardon had them up by seven and forced a Royal timeout. Scranton took the next point; before Foley dumped another kill, Sydney Ohl (Dallastown, Pa. / Dallastown Area) added an ace, and Taylor hammered another kill. Scranton promptly scored six of the next seven points to make it 20-16. Two Scranton errors and a Kennedy Christy (Saxonburg, Pa. / Knoch HS) ace pushed the Eagle advantage back to 23. A Podolan kill would give JC set point, and a Royal attack error ended the set, 25-19.
Scranton tried their hardest to stay alive in the third set, racing out ahead and leading by as many as 10. With the score at 18-8, the Eagles dug in and scored 11 straight points to reclaim the lead. Taylor started absolutely crushing balls as she totaled six kills during the run, including the one that gave JC the lead back. Ohl had two straight aces during the run, and Foley chipped in with a kill. The teams went back and forth, with Podolan smacking a kill and combining with Coley for a block before Kiona Sky Rousset-Hernandez (Rio Grande, Puerto Rico / Colegio Bautista de Carolina HS) added an ace. Holding match point at 24-23, Coley lined a ball down the middle that landed just inside the backline to win Juniata the Landmark Championship.
"Juniata is now your 2021 women's volleyball Landmark Champions!!"��
— Juniata Athletics (@JuniataEagles) November 7, 2021
Music to our ears ����#GoEagles #WingsUp #TakingFlight pic.twitter.com/1JD0cxPlBk
Taylor was named Landmark Championship MVP, her second time winning the award. She hit .333 with 16 kills and seven digs. Coley hit .438 with eight kills and a block assist, while Foley totaled 42 assists, 16 digs, and four kills.
The win is Juniata's 27th win in a row this season, and they have not dropped a set since October ninth. This is the longest winning streak in the Pavlik Era, with the last time Juniata won this many games in a row being back in 2005 when the team won 32 straight.
Juniata's 40 consecutive conference championship streaks is one of the longest such streaks in all of the NCAA. To provide a little perspective, when the streak started in 1981, a gallon of milk cost $1.83, the number one film in the box office that year was Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the Billboard Year-End Top Single was Bette Davis Eyes by Kim Carnes.
Juniata earns an automatic spot in the NCAA Tournament; they will find out where they are going and who they are playing on Monday.
