MANCHESTER, N.H. – Head Coach Braden Zamore of the Saint Anselm College women's volleyball team won the 200th women's volleyball match of his career on Tuesday, doing so with a straight-set victory over visiting Franklin Pierce University.
Just two matches after securing his 100th career victory at Saint Anselm, Zamore has now won exactly 200 contests across his women's volleyball coaching career between Daniel Webster College and the Hilltop. In his complete career spanning both men's and women's volleyball, he has won 267 out of a possible 493 matches since the 2008-09 academic year.
The Hawks improved to 18-6 overall on the season, winning via scores of 25-16, 26-24 and 25-22. More importantly, Saint Anselm moves to 8-3 against Northeast-10 Conference opponents to remain firmly in the upper half of the standings. Franklin Pierce falls to 12-11 overall on the year, dipping to 6-6 in league play.
Saint Anselm was led by junior Lois Dogbe (Winchester, Calif.) and her strong all-around performance, producing 11 kills on 21 swings with just two errors for a team-leading .429 attacking percentage. Freshman Gabby Belcher (Buckeye, Ariz.) hammered home 10 kills on 27 swings and junior Lauren Casey (Jefferson City, Mo.) matched sophomore Audrey Wetjen (Henderson, Nev.) with eight kills.
Junior Michelle Henwood (Guaynabo, Puerto Rico) had 31 assists on the evening and Casey's 12 digs led the Hawks defensively. Sophomore Kaitlin Brown (Glendale, Ariz.) and classmate Alina Barbarena (Los Angeles, Calif.) registered 11 digs defensively as well. Junior Caroline Belmontez (San Diego, Calif.) produced nine digs as the team's libero.
Henwood now has 815 assists on the season, cracking the team's single-season top-10 list. Only three student-athletes, including Henwood, have ever reached 1,000 assists in a single season – the junior did so as a freshman in 2019 after setting up 1,074 of her team's kills.
Franklin Pierce opened the match with four errors on its first eight swings, calling a timeout trailing by a 7-3 score. The Ravens rallied to capture a 10-9 lead before the Hawks used an 8-2 scoring run with the help of four consecutive Dogbe kills to take a 17-12 advantage that the hosts would not relinquish.
Saint Anselm limited Franklin Pierce to a negative attack percentage in the first set, but the Ravens responded with a hard-fought defeat in the second set. The Hawks led by a 23-17 margin late in the stanza before the Ravens made things interesting, firing off seven of the set's next eight points – Saint Anselm stood tall in the end, using a kill from Casey before a Ravens attacking error ended the set.
The Ravens led by a 9-2 score in the third set as momentum was firmly on their side of the court. Saint Anselm would not be deterred, producing 12 of the next 15 points in the match to capture a 14-12 lead. The Hawks would not let the Ravens come closer than one point the rest of the set. Two Wetjen kills in the final five points for the Hawks helped lock down the 3-0 win for the home team.
