The Basics 
• Score: Johns Hopkins – 3 • #23 Clarkson – 0 (25-21, 25-21, 25-18)
• Records: Johns Hopkins (9-0) • Clarkson (11-1)
• Location: Selinsgrove, PA• Orlando W. Houts Gymnasium
• The Short Story: In a battle of unbeatens, the Blue Jays kicked off the 14^th Annual Hampton Inn River Hawk Invitational with a straight-set victory over 23^rd-ranked Clarkson Friday night.

How it Happened

SET ONE
• Junior Simone Bliss opened the match with a kill on the first point. Fellow junior Natalie Aston then stepped to the service line, and the Jays reeled off five additional unanswered points to take a quick 6-0 lead.
• A Lauren Anthony kill made it 11-6 Hopkins, before Clarkson went on a 3-0 run to shrink the Blue Jay lead to 11-9.
• After it looked like the Blue Jays were going to run away with the opening set, the Golden Knights strung together five unanswered to even the score at 15-15 before Eleni Panagopoulos put the Jays back out in front with her second kill of the set.
• Hopkins wouldn't trail the remainder of the opening frame, with the final two points of the set coming via Golden Knight errors.

SET TWO
• Set two opened with neither team scoring more than three straight points until a 7-0 Hopkins run broke open a 6-6 tie into a 12-6 Blue Jay advantage.
• Hannah Korslund's first of two second-set kills pushed the Blue Jay lead to 17-9, their largest of the second stanza to that point.
• The Golden Knights would then respond with an 8-1 run to shrink their deficit to 18-17.
• Back-to-back kills from Louisa Kishton and Bliss gave Hopkins some breathing room, extending their lead to 23-18. Bliss closed things out with her sixth kill of the second set.

SET THREE
• Needing a third-set win to keep the match alive, Clarkson scored three of the first four points to take an early 3-1 advantage. Attacking errors on three consecutive points gave the lead back to Hopkins at 4-3, and the Jays would not trail for the remainder of the match.
• With the Blue Jays leading 22-18, Panagopoulos took matters into her own hands. Her kill made it 23-18, and she then followed with back-to-back aces to keep Hopkins' perfect season in tact.

What it Means
• Hopkins is now 1-0 against Clarkson, with this being the first-ever meeting between the two programs.
• With Haverford's loss tonight to Salisbury, Hopkins is now the only remaining unbeaten team in the Centennial Conference.
• The Blue Jays are 9-1 in their last ten Friday night matches.

Inside the Box Score
• JHU never trailed by more than two points at any point in the match.
• In a slightly unusual occurrence, Kishton tallied a season-high five assists. It was the most assists the senior captain has totaled since Oct. 7, 2018 which came in a five-set loss to Arcadia.
• Morgan Wu has continued to fill in nicely at the libero position, leading the team once again in digs with 14. Three other Blue Jays (Kishton, 13; Aston, 12; and Bliss, 11) all recorded double-digit digs.

Up Next
• Hopkins will be right back at it tomorrow with a pair of matchups beginning at 11 a.m. with RIT. The Jays will then have an opportunity to take down another ranked opponent when they face 24^th-ranked Ithaca to cap off the Hampton Inn River Hawk Invitational.

Be sure to follow the Blue Jays all season long on Twitter (@JHUVB) and on Instagram (@johnshopkinsvolleyball).