Pride open the weekend with a win, split the day against Hannibal-LaGrange and Waldorf
OSKALOOSA, Iowa - In their final weeked of matches before the start of conference play, the Clarke University women's volleyball team was able to get into the win column for the first time this season as they split their two matches with a 3-2 win over Hannibal-LaGrange University and a 3-1 defeat against Waldorf University.
The Pride played on set shy of the maximium amount of sets on the day and needed every bit of the first match to pull off a comeback from down 2-1 to take the match by scores of 25-15, 23-25, 21-25, 25-22, and 15-12 as they could have easily pulled out their second match of the day with a few more breaks their way as the Warriors took that four-set tilt by scores of 18-25, 25-22, 24-26, 21-25.
CU's key to success on the day was limiting their errors on the attack with their three set wins against the Trojans all having a hitting percentage of .270 or better with four or fewer errors and errors stayed low against Waldorf as they had no more than five on the attack to finish their day hitting .252 as a team in that final match.
Entering the weekend a little banged up, head coach Chris Miron emptied the bench with 16 members of the Pride seeing action in both matches in search of the lineups that would best work in this early part of the season.
Freshman Kortney Harms had a strong day offensively with 13 kills in the win and 14 kills against Waldorf with a .423 hitting percentage against Hannibal-LaGrange while adding 11 digs for a double-double and eight assists before being moved off of setter to work as an attacking player primarily mid-match.
Harms was the only player in CU's lineup with double digit kills in their opener but seven others had multiple kills as Mattie Dafforn had nine, Kelsey NeCollins had six, Brittney Mundell and Jessica Schaad had five, Amelia Driver had four, Rachel Haubert and Rylie Bohanan both had three, and Lily Himmelmann had two. Bohanan finished with a match-high 24 digs as Clarke's libero while adding six assists as well while both Keely Colyer and Mia Jaeger tied for the team-high with 11 assists apiece.
Schaad had the match-high for kills against the Warriors as she finished with 18 kills on 34 swings with only three errors for a .441 hitting percentage as she and Harms did a lot of the heavily lifting on the attack but Dafforn had another strong outing to finish with seven kills on 17 attempts for a .294 hitting percentage.
Bohanan put up another 20-dig effort aginst Waldorf while getting another rare kill as the libero as Jaeger and Madison Blohm served as the primary setters all match after closing the win that way for Jaeger to finish at 27 assists and eight kills while Blohm had 14 assists in four sets of work.
Clarke women's volleyball will have a quicker-than-normal turnaround for their two neutral-site matches on Saturday as they'll get started up in the morning with a 9:00 a.m. CT first serve scheduled against Mount Marty College as they'll wrap up their weekend in Oskaloosa, Iowa with an 11:00 a.m. match against St. Ambrose.