Rowan volleyball (6-7) got things back on track in their Thursday, Sept. 26 match against Muhlenberg (5-6) at Esbjornson Gymnasium, sweeping the Mules 3-0 (26-24, 25-23, 25-16.)

The match also saw junior Vanessa Hutchinson reach a new milestone as she passed 1,000 career digs.

“I couldn’t have done it without my entire team, my coaches, and my family supporting me along the way,” Hutchinson said. “It’s just really exciting and now it’s in the record books at Rowan, so I’m excited to see what I can keep doing with that.”

She entered the match nine shy of the mark, inevitably putting up 11 on the night and passing the thousand-digs threshold towards the end of the second set. Hutchinson currently sits with 1,002 digs in 74 career matches.

“She [Hutchinson] works really hard and she’s a really good person. She’s a really, really good teammate and she wants to get it right, so it was really cool to see her achieve something that’s such a big deal,” Head Coach Deana Jespersen said. “She’s a kid that I’m always going to remember, but now her name’s going to be in the record books forever which is really cool. Her work ethic is beyond what some people have. She grinds and she worked really hard this summer to get to where she is.” 

The Profs went up 23-15 in the first set, but Muhlenberg came crawling back to tie things up 24-24. An ace from Brooke Adams and a kill from Jena Kaul stopped the Mules advance, with the Profs closing out the first set with a 26-24 win.

Rowan’s second set played out much like the first. Despite leading 17-10, Muhlenberg went on a 12-3 run to retake the lead 22-20 late in the set. The Profs were able to respond with a run of their own, scoring five of the last six points of the set to go up 2-0.

The Profs turned on the gas in the third set, closing out the night with a 14-3 run to complete the sweep of Muhlenberg. 

Overall, the team hit .211 (38-15-109) with Kaul delivering a match-high 17 kills, followed by Maya Iovacchini (6) and Kyra Hissner (5.)

Adams finished with 30 assists along with five aces and five digs. Defensively, Ava Best tallied four blocks.

This win for the Profs is their first since Sept. 14, breaking their four-match losing streak against a team that had won their last three matches.

“It is hard to go on a four-game losing streak so we really just wanted to snap that tonight before our off weekend and we showed it on the court,” Adams said.

Jespersen adds that the sweep against Muhlenberg is a confidence boost and much-needed reassurance for her team.

“We’ve had a string of losses, but we were playing really tough competition. I was just hoping that the tough competitors that we’ve seen the past four or five games are going to pay off so that when we played a team that we were a little bit more in line with, we were going to stand out,” Jespersen said. “It was awesome to get a win against a quality team. Winning is great, but it’s even more impressive when you have to fight a little bit of battle and we need to get kind of a big win like that so that confidence-wise we feel like we’re okay again.”

The Profs now have a week off before their next match against the reigning New Jersey Athletic Conference (NJAC) champions Ramapo, who underwent many changes during the offseason. Most notably, they hired a new head coach in Tyler Kwinta, who previously served as assistant coach for the Division I University of Connecticut women’s volleyball team.

Despite the new look for the Roadrunners, Jespersen says Ramapo is still the defending champs, making them key contenders in the race to the NJAC playoffs.

“Ramapo is not what they were, so I don’t really know what to expect with them, but I am excited because no matter what it’s the defending champs,” Jespersen said. “I feel like, again, another confidence moment, if we can go in there and we can take it to them and get that win, I feel like we’re going to be one step closer to feeling like we’re on the right path for the NJAC playoffs.”

Rowan is set to face off against Ramapo in Mahwah, New Jersey, on Thursday, Oct. 3.

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