The William Jewell College Volleyball team dropped the 2016 Great Lakes Valley Conference opener on the road at Southern Indiana Friday night in Evansville, Ind. The Cardinals were swept in three sets 25-19, 25-21, 25-14. The Cardinals fall to 4-5 overall and 0-1 in the GLVC.
In the opening set Jewell struggled to find an offensive rhthym totaling just ten kills, to the Screaming Eagles' 17, while hitting just .100.
With the score knotted at nine a piece USI went on a 7-2 run forcing a timeout by head coach
Carolyn Raynes. Following the pause,
Grace Miller and
Leslie Booth posted kills while a block from
Madeline Johnson gave Jewell a quick 3-0 run. However, the Eagles went on another surge and pulled away for the 25-19 win.
In set two, USI picked up where they left off coming out to a 3-1 lead before the Cardinals went on a small run to go on top 6-4. However, the Eagles quickly went on another 9-1 run forcing Raynes to burn both timeouts. Following the second break, the Cardinals battled back going on a 5-2 spurt behind kills from
Paige Cunningham and
Mary Booton to pull within 22-17, forcing the Eagles to take a timeout of their own. Cunningham continued to fire away recording another kill to help get as close as 23-20 before two kills from Te'Ayla Whitfield ended the set at 25-21.
In the final set the Screaming Eagles came out on fire jumping out to a 10-3 lead before Cunningham and Johnson stopped the bleeding with a block. After a timeout, trailing 18-7, the Cardinals played evenly with USI with each scoring seven points over the remainer of the match but the early deficit was too much to overcome as Jewell fell 25-14.
On the night, the Cardinals posted eight blocks and four aces but struggled offensively hitting just .066 with 25 kills.
Cunningham led Jewell with 11 kills, including five in the second set. She and Miller collected four blocks apiece while Johnson added three. Sophomore
Olivia Tolberd continued to produce defensively with 18 digs to go along with three service aces.
Jewell is back in action tomorrow afternoon as they take part in the Bellarmine Triangle where they will take on the host Knights in GLVC action followed by a match with non-conference opponent Trevecca Nazarene.
