The Quinnipiac women’s volleyball team was swept 3-0 by the Fairleigh Dickinson Knights in a weekend where they were officially eliminated from the NEC tournament. Sophomore Kelby Carey’s double-double of 10 kills and 14 digs wasn’t enough to keep the Bobcats from losing their 22nd match of the season.

Fairleigh Dickinson won the first two sets on late surges by slim margins. In the first, the Knights led 8-3 early, allowed the Bobcats to get within a point at 20-19, but then rallied to a 25-22 victory.

Quinnipiac held a 20-18 lead in the second set, but the Knights won four of the next five points to force a timeout from Quinnipiac head coach Robin Lamott Sparks. The Bobcats won the next two points out of the break, but the Knights finished the set with two service aces.

“We needed to come out from the beginning of the game, and we just didn’t do that,” Sparks said. “We just didn’t quite get over the edge that we needed to get a win. In the second set we out-hit them, we out-dug them, we did everything on the stat sheet that we needed to win the game, but unforced errors hurt us, and those are things that we need to work on.”

Quinnipiac tallied 18 miscues in the match, compared to Farleigh Dickinson’s 14, but the Knights’ real advantage came in the third set, when they committed just a single error to Quinnipiac’s six. The unforced errors helped them make quick work of Quinnipiac in the third, and final set, 25-12.

“Our service game was not as strong as it needed to be,” Sparks said. “We missed a lot of serves in the first game so we backed off, which allowed them to make easier passes and they could run the middle.”

Quinnipiac sophomore Kayla Lawler had 24 assists and freshman Chelsey Pachoud (9 kills) also had strong performances in the loss.

The Bobcats return to action on Friday when they play Fairleigh Dickinson again in New Jersey.