The Villanova Wildcats snapped the Pirates' 12-match win streak on Sunday afternoon in five sets (22-25, 25-19, 16-25, 27-25, 12-15).
This match drops the Pirates record to 15- 2 on the season and 2-1in the Big East. This is Villanova's second straight win after defeating Rutgers on Friday binging them to 7-10 overall and 2-2 in conference play.
The first set was one filled with errors for Seton Hall, eventually leading to the Pirates handing over their lead to the Wildcats. In the set, the Pirates had 13 attacking errors, three serving errors, one ball handling error and one blocking error.
Five of the 13 attacking errors were committed by sophomore Stacey Manthorpe, who currently leads the team in kills.
After breaking a 12-12 tie in the second set, the match belonged to the Pirates keeping the Wildcats at least two points away at all times. The Pirates' 5-1 run and set victory ended on a kill from sophomore Simona Sekulova on an assist from senior Olivia Trudeau.
The Wildcats got out to a six point lead over the Pirates in the third set, 16-10, which forced the Pirates to take a time out. After the time out, the Pirates were able to exchange points, but it was too late as the Wildcats took the set 25-16.
Krista Anderson, who capped off the set with a kill, earned 6 kills in the set.
The fourth set looked like it was all Villanova, who once held a 10-point lead, but a late surge by the Pirates fueled a comeback to take their second set of the match.
Three straight attacking errors in the fourth set, helped the Wildcats take the early 6-3 lead. Despite being down 19-9, the Pirates were able to tie the game later at 24. The comeback featured three straight kills from freshman Molly Grammer, sophomore Shelbey Manthorpe and senior Morgan DeVries as well as a key attacking error by Villanova's Gabby Pethokoukis.
With the score tied at 25, Villanova junior Julie Joyce committed a serving error that was followed by Grammer's fourth kill of the game to win the game for the Pirates.
The Wildcats had a three point lead in the fifth set, but the Pirates were able to fight back again and tie the score at 10.
Villanova's Emma Pettit gave the Pirates their first lead of the set with her first attacking error on the game, 11-10.
Although the Pirates' errors were most obvious in the first set, they were present throughout the entire game, especially on the attack, having over 40 on the game.
The Pirates return to play with back to back Big East games Saturday Oct. 6 against Louisville and Sunday Oct. 7 at Cincinnati.
Stephanie Vedral can be reached at Stephanie.Vedral@student.shu.edu
