Garden City, N.Y. - With a commanding advantage in blocks, the Adelphi University team brought down Bentley University on Friday evening inside the Center for Recreation and Sports, also resulting in career victory number 300 for Head Coach Danielle MacKnight. 

MacKnight, who is amidst her 15th year (14th season), coached the Panthers (15-8, 4-4 NE10) to a 3-1 victory over the Falcons, who sat second in the conference standings heading into Friday evening's contest. Now, the Panthers will take on the new no. 2 on Saturday, Oct. 30 when they welcome Stonehill College for a 1:00 p.m. matchup. 

Adelphi cruised to an early lead in the opening set, leading by five at 11-6, courtesy of a Noelle Alberda kill. Bentley managed to string together some points, but the Panthers consistently earned the sideout after letting up no more than two - while forcing a timeout at 19-13. The home team closed out the set with five of the final seven points, capped with a kill from Anna Oden. 

The hosts once again found themselves in the drivers seat in the second frame with a 9-5 lead, however coming out of a Falcon-called timeout, the visitors rattled off five straight to regain a lead at 10-9. A kill and a block courtesy of Alberda, followed by a Delaney Kiendra strike put Adelphi back out front. With Grace Wegmann at the service line, she helped the Panthers earn four straight and Samantha Meehan closed the door with a kill to give the home team a 2-0 advantage in the match. 

Bentley used their best offensive outing in the third set to claim a 26-24 victory, holding the Panthers to a .164 hitting percentage. They still fell short as Adelphi recorded four team blocks to their two, but ultimately it was less errors on the attack that won them the set. 

The Brown and Gold didn't let the set three loss slow them down, as a block from Alberda capped a 4-0 stretch which resulted in Adelphi being up 8-4. The Falcons were not going down without a fight however, as the teams experienced six tie scores and two lead changes in the final set. After a service ace from Bentley's Shannon Ngo, Macknight called a timeout, despite a two-point lead. A block from Meehan and Samantha Collins led to match point for the Panthers, which they would not secure until a final service error from the Falcons ended the contest. 

For the match, Alberda put up a career-performance with 16 kills as Kambel Fiser paced the offense with 45 assists. Defensively, Fiser also added three solo blocks as Alberda and Oden each chipped in two solos each to contribute to Adelphi's 13 team blocks and a season-high nine solo blocks.