Box Score HUNTINGDON, Pa. – Trailing 2-1 on the road against an opponent it had lost to 14 out of 15 times in school history, the Clarion University women's volleyball team rallied behind senior middle hitter Rebecca Webb to pull out a 3-2 win at Juniata Thursday night.
 
“It's a huge win for us,” Clarion's sixth-year head coach Jennifer Mills, whose teams hold both wins over the Eagles, said. “Juniata is a good program, and I think any win we get right now is a confidence boast for us.”
 
Juniata (11-6) won sets one (25-19) and three (25-19) with Clarion winning set two 25-18 to give Juniata the 2-1 lead.
 
But Webb knocked down nine kills while hitting .571 (9 kills, 1 error, 14 attempts) in the last two sets helping Clarion (14-3) take the sets by scores of 25-14 and 15-6 to win the match.
 
“We told our setter (Laura Subject) that we needed to find the middle more,” Mills said. “”She did a good job of doing that, and Rebecca made some great decisions and hit the ball well. I was really pleased with her decision making.”
 
Clarion, which has won five straight and 12 of 13 overall, had trouble early on handling the Juniata middle attack while falling in the first set. But the Golden Eagles were able to adjust on the fly in taking three of the final four.
 
“The first set, they handled us,” Mills said. “We had to make a couple of changes. I'm really proud of the adjustments we made.”
 
Despite the adjustments, Juniata was able to gain a lot of momentum at the start of the third set going up 20-12 before Clarion rallied to cut the deficit to 24-21 before finally falling. But the rally seemed to be a momentum switcher for the Golden Eagles who ran out to a 16-6 lead in the fourth set and then closed the match on an 8-1 run in the fifth-and-deciding set.
 
“When you fall behind (like we did in the third set) the thing you try to do is regain the momentum,” Mills said. “We are still going to make you work for your points. It prepares you for the next set.”
 
Webb finished with a match-high 17 kills while hitting .517 (17-2-29) and adding five blocks. Hannah Heeter added 15 kills, six blocks and four digs while hitting .419 (15-2-31).
 
“We know we have to get Rebecca and Hannah going when they are side-by-side in a rotation,” Mills said. “We want to make the other team have to choose who to block. We were able to do that tonight because our ball control improved as the match went on.”
 
Corinne Manley and Emily Stewart each chipped in with 11 kills for the Golden Eagles with Manley adding seven blocks and Stewart 10 digs. Subject had 58 set assists, the most by a Golden Eagle in the 25-points-per-set era and the most since Kristi Fiorillo had 61 Sept. 12, 2007, in a four-set win over Slippery Rock when sets were contested to 30 instead of 25. Subject added eight digs and two kills.
 
Rebecca Ferragonio paced Clarion's defense with 31 digs, her second 30-dig match of the year, and Carlie Bieranowski added six kills, five digs and three blocks with four of the kills, all three blocks and two of the digs coming in the key fourth set.
 
Clarion returns to action Saturday at 1 p.m. when it hosts Mercyhurst in PSAC West play.   
 
NOTES – Clarion's only other win over Juniata came Oct. 5, 2010, when the Golden Eagles defeated the Eagles 3-0 at Juniata. Juniata won the first 13 matches vs. Clarion before that win … The 14-3 start is the sixth-best start after 17 games in school history. The 2002 squad was 16-1 and teams in 1985, 2007, 2009 and 2010 were 15-2.