X-Women finish season with win over Acadia

WOLFVILLE, NS – The StFX X-Women defeated the Acadia Axewomen 3-2 Saturday evening in Wolfville, NS, eliminating them from playoff contention. The Axewomen needed the win to move within two points of Memorial but failed to gain ground, while the victory sealed a fourth place finish in the AUS standings for the X-Women.

Through the first set, neither team took more than a two point lead until a kill by Acadia's Alyssa Berry pushed the Axewomen out to a 18-15 lead that was stretched to four by a StFX attack error. Acadia would take the first set 25-21 off of Berry's fifth kill of the first game.

The pendulum swung to the X-Women in the second of five sets with StFX taking the lead from start to finish, pulling off a 25-17 second game win with fourth year outside hitter Katherine Ryan posting six second set kills.

StFX would take a 2-1 lead on a 25-20 third set victory. After pulling out to a 14-7 StFX advantage, Acadia would fight back to bring the game to 19-18 but StFX, led by Ryan, would prevail.

The Axewomen grabbed the fourth set 25-19 after taking over the lead at five. Pushing the score to 19-12, Acadia would hold onto the cushion in the closing of the fourth to send the match into a fifth and final game.

Taking an early 4-0 lead, Acadia would be passed following a tie at six. Acadia's five attack errors and two service errors in the closing of the final set game handed StFX the 15-12 win and 3-2 match win.

StFX's Katherin Ryan was named the Subway Player of the game with 17 kills, while teammate Catherine Thornton posted a game high 19 kills and an outstanding 0.327 hitting percentage.

Three Axewomen posted double digit kills including Alyssa Berry, Nicole Davidson and Meg Rector with 15, 13 and 13 respectively.

With the win, StFX closes out the season with a 8-9 record, sitting in fourth place with 16 points. A single AUS regular season game remains Sunday afternoon between sixth place Moncton (5-11, 10 points) and fifth place Memorial (7-9, 14 points) in Newfoundland. Moncton has already secured their berth as the hosts of the AUS championship, slated for next weekend, February 17-19. A Memorial win would move them into a tie with the X-Women, however with a 2-0 record over the SeaHawks this season the X-Women own the tiebreaker and will hang onto their fourth place ranking, setting up a potential AUS quarterfinal match Friday evening against the SeaHawks. The official championship schedule will be released tomorrow.