The William Jewell volleyball team posted one of their better offensive performances of the season on Friday evening to sweep Maryville 25-23, 27-25, 25-20 to move to 11-12 overall, and 4-6 in the Great Lakes Valley Conference.
In the opening set Jewell trailed 3-1 before stringing together five consecutive points, led by by two kills from
Olivia Johnston, to take a 5-3 lead. After Maryville tied the game at 13 the Cardinals grabbed a two point advantage which they maintained the remainder of the set. The Cardinals came out of the gate balanced as Johnston lead with four kills in the opener while three other Cardinals had three kills each.
In set two Jewell jumped out to an early 9-3 lead aided by six Maryville errors. The Saints pulled within 14-10 before the Cardinals went on another run to pull ahead 19-12 behind two kills from
Paige Cunningham. Maryville rallied and scored five consecutive points on three Jewell errors to pull within 17-19 before a
Grace Miller kill ended the run. Jewell seemed to be pulling away, taking a 22-19 lead but the Saints again came back to tie the set at 23 and twice more at 24 and 25. Miller posted two more kills to end the set 27-25 and gave the Cardinals a 2-0 lead at the break. Miller collected six kills in the set while Cunningham had five.
After the intermission, the Cardinals again came out on fire, opening a 6-1 lead to force a Maryville timeout. Following the pause, Jewell continued the surge, scoring two points on errors by the Saints. From there MU went on a 7-2 run to crawl back into the game at 11-9. From that point the two teams traded runs as Jewell went scored four points to pull ahead 19-13 before four points from Maryville pulled them back within two. With the Saints threatening to force a fourth set and extend the match Johnston took over and scored two of the final four points to seal the win for the Cardinals. The final set was a decisive one as Jewell hit a game high .278 while holding Maryville to a game low .139 attack percentage.
The freshman Johnston enjoyed her second consecutive postitive showing as she was tied with Miller with a team-leading 12 kills on attack percentages of .312 and .526 respectively. Cunningham added nine kills on a .292 clip.
Tolberd posted her third straight 20+ dig performance with 21 to lead the Cardinals while Johnston and
Codi Winslow each had nine.
Alix Weigel collected a game-high 25 assists while
Amy Lindhorst chipped in 13.
Madeline Johnson paced Jewell at the net with five blocks.
Up next, the Cardinals will play host to Missouri-St. Louis on Saturday afternoon at 3:00 p.m. in the Mabee Center.
