West Hartford, CT ? The Hartford Hawks went five games before falling to the New Hampshire Wildcats in an America East showdown at Hartford on Friday night. The Hawks won the first and third game by scores of 30-28 and 30-24 and dropped the others by 30-15, 30-28 and 15-11 scores. Hartford is now 8-18 overall and 0-10 in conference play while New Hampshire improves to 9-15 overall and 4-5 in America East action.
The Hawks were led by Jennifer Monroy. She finished the match with 22 kills, one of three players with double digits in the kills column. Erin Macro finished second on the team with 12 kills and Teri Connolly added 10. Sarah Rasor finished the match with 42 assists, while four players finished with double digits in the digs column. Rasor led the Hawks defense with 15 digs while Monroy added 13, Lauren Flores 14 and Ljiljana Zecevic 12.
Hartford scored the first two points of the first game and held on to that lead until the Wildcats tied the score at six on a Hartford error. The score would knot up seven more times before a six points run for Hartford opened up an 18-12 lead. New Hampshire pulled within one, 25-24, before a timeout restructured the Hawks who went on to win with an Macro kill.
The Hawks momentum came to a halt in the middle of the second game after a seven point run put the Wildcats in the driver's seat 21-11. New Hampshire then scored seven of the final eight points of the game to knot the match at one win a piece going into the break.
Hartford came out of the break to pick up the first seven points of game three. The run featured a pair of aces for Ljiljana Zecevic and kills from Monroy and Sarah Rasor. Hartford never looked back from that early lead with the closest the Wildcats could come was two, 26-24 before Hartford won the final four points on kills from Monroy, Teri Connolly and another ace for Zecevic.
Game four featured 12 tie scores and six lead changes. Nine of the ties came in the first 24 points of the match with neither team pulling ahead until a three-point run for the Wildcats put them up two, 14-12. After trading points, the Hawks retied the score at 18, 19, and for the final time at 22. With the Wildcats ahead 29-26, the Hawks battled to score two points before falling victim to a Lindsay Fogarty kill, closing the book on game four.
The Wildcats then opened a 6-1 lead in the rubber game, a deficit the Hawks would never recover from. That lead was then extended to 11-3, before the Hawks rattled off five-straight points to pull within four 12-8. With Hartford winning the serve on the Wildcats match point, Hartford would score two-straight on attack errors from Sarah Rehn before Rehn connected for the final kill of the match.
The Hawks will play their final regular season home game tomorrow at 7:00 p.m. when they welcome conference leading Albany to The Reich Family Pavilion. The Hawks will honor their lone senior, Teri Connolly, prior to the game.
