Senior Day battle ends in 3-2 Pride loss to Peru State
DUBUQUE, Iowa - Ending a mid-season losing streak the night prior, the Clarke University women's volleyball team would fall just short of starting a winning streak in a five-set defeat to Peru State College on Saturday afternoon at the Kehl Center.
Prior to the match, the Pride would honor seniors Rachel Haubert, Brittney Mundell, Claire Smith, McKenzie Johns, Haddi Thompson, and fifth year senior Rylie Bohanan in the penultimate home weekend for CU women's volleyball.
To the match itself, Clarke would need to take the two sets they won to extra points, taking the opening set 26-24 after being down to a set point for the Bobcats at 24-23 but three-straight points to finish off set capped off by kills from Maya Watters and Haubert with a block by Mundell and Kaelyn Minich sandwiched in between.
Peru State would take back-to-back 25-20 sets in the second and third as the Pride would struggle on the attack in those sets to hitting percentages of .061 and -.053 respectively, combining for 20 errors over 87 swings over the two sets.
Needing the fourth set to continue playing, Clarke would find themselves down 22-20 but a quick 3-0 run would put them up a point as the teams would essentially go on to trade points until it got to 28-28 where a service error then a Haubert kill would tie the match at two sets apiece and send it into a deciding fifth set.
The Bobcats would take advantage of two 3-0 runs and a 4-0 run in the fifth set to pull away from CU at different points of the set, including scoring the final three points of the match on kills from Erison Vonderschmidt, Kennedy Miller, and Eden Moore.
Moore (15), Vonderschmidt (11), along with Raevyn Russel (15), Addison Schneider (12), and Kalyssa Fox (13) would all finish with double digit kills, as Russel (21) and Vonderschmidt (17) would add double digit digs for double-doubles along with a 30-assist, 14-dig double-double for setter Allie Schneider.
Watters and Haubert were the primary targets for the Pride attack as Watters had a match-high 19 kills but also produced 11 errors for a .157 hitting percentage while Haubert set a new career-high with 18 kills on 42 swings with seven errors for .262 hitting percentage and her 10th double-double of the season.
Both CU setters of Harms and Mia Jaeger had double-doubles of their own with Harms producing 25 assists and 17 digs while Jaeger had 21 assists and 12 digs as Harms was also inserted as the right side attacker in her front row rotations in the fourth set to finish 5-for-10 with an error for a .400 hitting percentage.
Bohanan led all players in the match with 22 digs for her ninth match of the season over 20 digs to move her career dig total to 1,230, which sits the Jefferson City, Mo. native comfortably in seventh place all time in program history with a chance to move into sixth place, just 74 back of that mark.
Clarke women's volleyball will finish their home schedule next week with their final three matches in the Kehl Center for 2024 starting next Tuesday when they host Grand View University for a 7:00 p.m. CT first serve against the Vikings on Oct. 22.