Rams fall to Towson on Senior Night

After an easy victory over Delaware Friday night, the VCU Rams were looking for a repeat on Saturday in their final conference home game. The Towson Tigers had other plans.

Towson used timely rallies and 38 VCU errors to defeat the Rams 3-1 (25-20, 27-25, 18-25, 25-14) on senior night at the Siegel Center.

The game was the final weekend game at home for three VCU seniors: Cat Juson (Long Beach, Calif./Bush), Laryssa Goncalves (Curitiba, Brazil/Colegio Dom Bosco) and Elisa Kuehnel (Dresden, Germany/Sportsgymnasium). Juson and Kuehnel started all four years for the Rams while Gonalves has started the past three.

In Game 1, the Rams received the first point after a Tigers’ attack ended out of bounds. However, the Rams wouldn’t lead for the rest of the game. Towson scored the next five points, forcing a VCU timeout. The timeout appeared to have no effect on the Tigers attack, as the visitors stretched their lead to as many as seven at 11-4. The Rams took another timeout following the 11th point that spurred a Rams comeback. VCU went on a 15-8 run behind the offense of Kuehnel, Jessica Ojukwu (Sao Paulo, Brazil/Colegio Dourado) and Mariel Frey (Lititz, Pa./Manheim Twp.) that tied the score at 19. It was the Tigers who would rally last though, as the visitors outscored VCU 6-1 the rest of the way to take the game.

In Game 2, the Rams once again jumped out to an early lead by scoring the first three points of the game. However, Towson once again stormed back to take the lead-by as many as five points at 13-8. Once again Kuehnel and Ojukwu, with the help of Ariel Newman (Greensboro, N.C./Southern Guilford), brought the Rams back into the game. A Newman kill gave the Rams a 23-21 lead that forced a Towson timeout. Following the timeout, VCU scored to come within one point of victory, but another Tigers rally stalled the Rams’ offense and gave Towson a 27-25 win.

Game 3 was the lone win of the match for VCU. The Rams jumped out to an early 3-0 lead that turned into a back-and-forth battle before five consecutive VCU points turned a 12-12 tie into a 17-12 lead. A Towson timeout could not stop the VCU rally, as the Rams continued to score and force errors, leading to a 25-18 victory. However, the Tigers shut the door on the Rams in Game 4 using the same formula. Towson took an early 5-5 tie and extended it into a nine-point lead that VCU could never recover from. The Tigers finished off the Rams, 25-14.

Ojukwu finished with a match-high 19 kills in 31 attempts (54.8 percent) while Kuehnel had 12. Goncalves added 23 digs in the loss while Juson had 12.

The Rams are back in action Tuesday night against American in their final home contest of the season.