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Nicole Wiechecki Collects 1,000th Career Dig, But Wilmington’s 15-Match Winning Streak Snapped at Dominican
VB: Dominican 3 - Wilmington 0
Senior outside hitter Nicole Wiechecki collected 14 digs, with her seventh being her 1,000th in her career, but the Wilmington University volleyball team had its 15-match winning streak snapped, dropping a straight set decision to Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference North Division leading Dominican on Saturday afternoon on Coach Baxter Court.
The loss was the first in the conference for the Wildcats (25-5, 17-1 CACC) and did not allow the team to set a new program record of 16 consecutive victories. The 15 straight wins ties the record set by the 2004 squad that went on to win the CACC regular season and CACC Tournament.
In a battle of conference unbeatens, Dominican (21-7, 17-0 CACC) earned the three set victory with set scores of 25-20, 25-19 and 25-20.
The first set was tied 10-all when the Chargers went on an 8-3 run to go ahead 18-13. The Wildcats came back to cut the lead to 19-18, but the Lady Chargers scored the next three points for a 22-18 lead en route to the 25-20 win.
Set two was tied at 2-2 when Dominican went on an 8-1 tear to go ahead 10-3 and led by as many as nine points as they cruised to a 25-19 win and take a 2-0 match lead.
In the final set, Wilmington took an early lead by scoring four of the first five points but the Chargers came back with four straight points to claim a 5-4 lead. Now tied at 8-8, Dominican charged ahead as they outscored Wilmington, 9-4, over the next 13 points to pull ahead 17-12 and take the lead for good. After the Wildcats scored back-to-back points to get to within two at 21-19, the Chargers retaliated with the final four points of the set to win the game and the match, 25-20.
The Wildcats collected 25 kills on the afternoon, but committed 17 errors on 139 swings for a season low .058 hitting percentage as a team. Wiechecki led the offense with seven kills while Kaitlin DiGiacinto added five. Katie Shorter finished with four kills while Brooke Foskey tallied three.
In addition to Wiechecki’s 14 digs, DiGiacinto added 12 and Alex Siolos finished with a double-double, picking up 10 assists and 11 digs.
The Wildcats outblocked the Chargers, 8-6, but it was enough to overcome the 46-25 and 85-58 kills and digs advantage Dominican held over the Wildcats.
Wiechecki becomes just the fourth Wildcat to collect more than 1,000 digs in her career, doing so in less than three years. She now has 1,007 for her career in 318 sets played, and is now only trails three Wildcats on the all-time list. Meghan Frick still holds the all-time record of 1,619 digs, set during her four year career from 2007-10.
The Wildcats will look to get back on track and start a new winning streak heading into the postseason with two matches left in the 2012 regular season. They return home on Tuesday for a non-conference match against Shepherd before hosting Post in the regular season finale on Saturday for Senior Day. Tuesday’s match is slated to begin at 6 p.m.
