CORTLAND, N.Y. – The Cortland women's volleyball team won a battle of the top two teams in the SUNYAC standings with a 25-23, 25-13, 31-33, 25-14 win over visiting New Paltz. 
 
Cortland improved to 16-3 overall with its 11th win in its last 12 matches. The Red Dragons currently sit atop the SUNYAC standings with a 5-0 mark. New Paltz is now 15-6 overall and, with its first league loss, are now in a three-way tie for second place at 5-1 with Brockport and Geneseo. 
 
Anna Pilkey (Ballston Spa) and Allie Sturgess (Stony Brook/Ward Melville) led Cortland with 14 kills apiece. Pilkey added 17 digs and Sturgess had nine digs. Kira Pirrera (Hauppauge/Smithtown West) registered a career-high 13 kills with no errors in 24 attempts for a .542 attack percentage and Lexy Bloss (York, PA/Dallastown Area) had eight kills with one error in 12 attempts for a .583 attack percentage. Pirrera and Bloss each recorded six blocks. 
 
Giovanna Rossi (Nichols/Tioga) ended with six kills and six blocks. Alexa Guedez (Mamaroneck/Rye Neck) finished with five kills and a team-high seven blocks. Ryan Hinshaw (Aurora, IL/Joliet Catholic Academy) totaled 26 assists, three aces and 10 digs, Meadow Wittman (Colden/Springville Griffith Institute) finished with 24 assists, and Mikenzie Martens (Carthage) led the Red Dragons with 29 digs. 
 
Jamie Albrecht led three New Paltz with 17 kills, followed by Mackenzie Williams with 14 and Letisha Perez with 12. Cate DiGiacomo dished out 44 assists and added 12 digs. Melanie Podstupka finished with 21 digs. 
 
Cortland finished the day with a .301 team attack percentage (62 kills, 16 errors in 153 attempts), while New Paltz hit .122 in the match (52 kills, 32 errors, 164 attempts). Of those 32 errors, 13 were the result of Cortland blocks. 
 
The first set featured 12 ties and five lead changes. Trailing 23-21, Cortland scored the final four points on a Rossi kill, a block by Guedez and Pirrera, a New Paltz error, and a block by Guedez and Sturgess. Cortland took a 4-0 lead in the second set and never trailed. 
 
New Paltz's 33-31 win in the third set represents the highest combined score in a set for the Red Dragons since a 33-31 win in the opening set at RIT in November 2019. New Paltz fought off four potential match points at 24-23, 25-24, 28-27 and 30-29. With the set tied at 31-31, the Hawks finally forced a fourth set with a Samantha Cox kill and a block by Perez and Kim Braun. 
 
Cortland bounced back in the fourth set to take an early 11-3 lead. New Paltz clawed back to within 14-10 before the Red Dragons closed the match on an 11-4 run. Pirrera totaled nine of her 13 kills over the final two sets - five in the third and four in the fourth. Pilkey had five of her 14 kills in the fourth set. 
 
Cortland will travel to Fredonia next Friday and Buffalo State next Saturday for SUNYAC matches.