Serving has been a strong point for Maryland all season.

Terrapins freshman outside hitter Erika Pritchard leads the conference with .47 aces per set, but it was setter Abigail Bentz who went behind the service line with her team tied at 14 in the fifth set versus No. 18 Purdue and forced the Boilermakers to overpass.

Pritchard elevated and rocketed the ball back down on Purdue's side. Match point Maryland.


Purdue tied it up again at 15, but Maryland stayed calm -- with Bentz dishing the ball out to Pritchard for another kill and another match point.

Then it was Pritchard's turn behind the service line, and another Boilermaker overpass. This time, freshman Jada Gardner bounced up in the middle to smack the ball back, and it ricocheted off the hands of Purdue outside hitter Caitlyn Newton and into the crowd.



Maryland defeated Purdue for the first time in program history. The five-set (25-23, 23-25, 25-21, 25-27, 17-15) Sunday afternoon victory also marked Maryland's 15th Big Ten conference victory and puts the team at 5-7 in the conference for the season, just behind Wisconsin (6-6) in the conference standings.

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Maryland's 16 wins so far on the season is the team's most since 2010.

The coaches in the Big Ten are constantly preaching that there aren't any easy nights or conference foes you can take for granted, and that was certainly true today.

Maryland's five-set victory was a true team effort, and one which put on display the amount of young talent in the Terrapin program. Freshman outside hitter Erika Pritchard led the offensive effort with a career-high 18 kills, while sophomore Gia Milana and freshman Samantha Drechsel each contributed 13, and junior opposite Angel Gaskin put away 11. Senior middle blocker Hailey Murray was one kill away from double digits, but she had zero errors to hit .750.

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Purdue's Sherridan Atkinson had a banner night with 19 kills and zero errors to hit .633, which played a large part in Purdue's .366 team hitting percentage versus Maryland (the Terrapins hit .351). The Boilermakers star player Danielle Cuttino, however, was not as deadly as usual, with 10 kills and four errors on 22 attempts (.273).

Purdue also struggled on serve receive, thanks to Maryland putting on the pressure from behind the service line. As a team, the Terrapins tallied seven aces to Purdue's three, but both teams struggled with service errors (15 for Purdue and 22 for Maryland).