Reilly Murphy's five kills and two blocks helped Bates defeat Maine Maritime 3-0 on Oct. 18, 2016. (File photo by Josh Kuckens/Bates College)

LEWISTON, Maine -- The Bates volleyball team swept Maine Maritime 3-0 (25-17, 25-23, 25-18) Tuesday night in Alumni Gym, avenging their 3-2 defeat to the Mariners on Sept. 24 at Colby.

Bates (7-12) senior Chandler McGrath (Seal Beach, Calif.) ended the match with her most emphatic kill of the night, giving her 13 for the match. McGrath led Bates in kills for the ninth straight match, attacking at a healthy .393 percentage with only two attack errors.

Mariners (16-7) captain Gillian O'Neal also had 13 kills for Maine Maritime, with a .258 attack percentage, while Tess Clark added nine kills. Sydney Adams had 25 assists, 11 digs and four kills for the visitors. Maria Perez led MMA with 13 digs.

Bates junior Lisa Slivken (New York, N.Y.) was the Bobcats' most efficient hitter, notching seven kills against one error on 15 attempts (.400). Sophomore Claire Naughton (Darien, Conn.) posted five kills and three aces while sophomore Reilly Murphy (Marshfield, Mass.) added five kills and two blocks. First-year Gabi Eustache (New York, N.Y.) had a match-high 19 digs while junior Jacqueline Forney (Bloomington, Ind.) passed out 32 assists.

The Bobcats held the Mariners at arm's length for nearly the full duration of the first set. Bates pulled away from a 14-11 lead to make it 22-14, taking advantage of two MMA service errors and back-to-back attack errors by Adams and Clark, prompting a timeout at 21-13 in Bates' favor. A kill by Slivken on a set by Eustache finished off the opening set.

Back-to-back aces by Adams, bookended by a pair of Bates attack errors, put MMA in a 17-15 lead in the second set and prompted a Bates timeout. Consecutive kills by McGrath returned the lead to Bates at 19-18, and after an MMA service error and a Slivken kill, the Bobcats had the lead for good at 21-19. A kill by Clark closed the Mariners' deficit to 24-23 but first-year Taylor Stafford-Smith's (Calabasas, Calif.) kill from Forney iced the set at 25-23 for a 2-0 Bates lead.

Bates led for almost the entire the third set, beginning with Stafford-Smith's opening kill, which grew into a 4-0 lead on kills by Murphy and McGrath and an ace by Naughton. MMA came back to tie it at 9-9 on back-to-back kills by Clark and O'Neal, followed by an MMA block and an attack error by Bates sophomore Lauren Brough (Killingworth, Conn.). But Hannah Butland's fourth straight serve went Bates' way on a Clark attack error for a 10-9 Bates lead that the Bobcats did not relinquish. An ace by Forney and a kill by Slivken expanded the lead to 17-13 and MMA came no closer than within three points the rest of the way. Stafford-Smith notched Bates' last of 10 aces in the match to make it 24-18, and McGrath's kill clinched Bates' victory.

The Bobcats next play a pair of non-conference matches at Clark University on Saturday -- vs. Worcester State (1pm) and vs. Clark (3pm).