ASHLAND, Va. - The EMU women's volleyball team, off to its best ODAC start in more than two decades, ran into a hot Randolph-Macon team Wednesday night. 

The Yellow Jackets used a .348 kill% for the match to pick up a 3-0 (25-18, 25-14, 25-15) win over the Royals. The loss dropped EMU to 7-7, 5-2 ODAC while RMC improved to 12-4, 7-0 ODAC. 

Highlights

• Randolph-Macon pulled ahead to an early lead in the first set. With the Royals trailing by three, back-to-back kills from Sarah East brought EMU within one at  6-7. RMC then went on a 14-6 run, forcing an EMU timeout. Out of the TO, EMU used kills from Paris Hutchinson and East to pull within five at 18-23, but RMC would pick up the final two points for a set one win. 
• The two teams traded points to start the second but with RMC leading 9-5, EMU went on a 6-2 tilt, highlighted by four kills from Lizzy Kirkton, to pull within one. EMU was able to tie the match at 14 but then Randolph-Macon scored nine straight points to take the second set, 25-14. 
• Set three started out very even with neither team able to take a lead. With RMC holding a three-point advantage, a kill from Heather Phelps brought EMU within two at 8-10. RMC built its lead to three with EMU working to chip away. But, much like the second set, RMC caught fire late. With the score at 17-14 Randolph-Macon, the Yellow Jackets outscored the Royals 8-1 to pick up the set, and match, win. 
• Kirkton's 11 kills led the way for EMU while East added her second double-digit kill game of the season, finishing with 10. Megan Miller had a strong night, racking up 30 assists to go along with five digs. Abby Kaufman was big on the defensive end, picking up a match-high 16 digs. 

By the Numbers

• 8 - This is the eighth match in the last nine that EMU has at least five blocks in a match. 
• 12 - Kaufman has double-digit digs in 12 of the Royals 14 matches this season. 
• .075 - EMU hit just .163 for the match, which is 75 points lower than their season percentage of .238 coming into the match. 

Words From Coach Steinbrecher

We couldn't quite put the whole game together tonight. We certainly competed at times but we need to be more consistent. That was a good RMC team that didn't make many errors. We'll learn a lot from this loss and get better tomorrow. I was impressed with (Sarah) East's performance tonight. She found ways to score and didn't make many erros. We saw another solid defensive performance from Abby (Kaufman), garnering over five digs per set. 

What's Next

EMU will be back on the road in North Carolina for a weekend set of ODAC matches against Randolph and Guilford. They'll take on Randolph at noon on Saturday before squaring off with host Guilford at 2 pm. 

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