Box Score FORT WAYNE, Ind. –The Indiana Tech volleyball team snapped a 10-game losing streak with a five set victory, 3-2 (25-11, 25-20, 20-25, 22-25, 15-11), over Marygrove on Wednesday night at the Schaefer Center.
It was opening night of play for the Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference and the Warriors move to 2-10 on the season but are 1-0 in conference play while the Mustangs fall to 6-4 and 0-1 in WHAC play.
Tech got off to a fast start and looked dominate in the first two sets, winning the first 25-11 with a hitting percentage of .355, tallying 13 kills to just eight for Marygrove who hit .111. The gap narrowed in the second game as the Warriors tallied 16 kills but committed seven errors, while the defense held the Mustangs to just eight kills and six errors.
In games three and four the Orange and Black just couldn't put the ball away, despite tallying 28 kills and coming just 11 errors in the two games. Meanwhile, Marygrove tallied 14 and 15 kills, respectively, and committed the same 11 errors.
It came down to the fifth and final game and the Warriors were able to feed off the energy from the 140 fans in the Schaefer Center to get the victory. The match point came courtesy of a
Suzanne Taylor kill into the back left corner of the court, her 13th kill of the night.
While Taylor performed well, it was junior
Shanice Richards that stole the show tallying 18 kills, hitting .364, a season high, while also tallying 3.5 blocks to lead Tech.
Stacy Nagy added 14 kills while
Cassandra Sarabia tallied 11.
Alexandra Roberts led the team with 35 assists while
Kelsey Fitzpatrick added 16.
"Our middles,
Shanice Richards and
Stacy Nagy really paved the way for us tonight, offensively," stated Tech Head Coach Kourtney Volkmer. "It was great to see them put some balls away for us in times of need."
In the back row, sophomore
Katelyn St. Martin led the team with 33 digs while freshman libero
Taylor Kelso continued to shine, tallying 27. Sarabia added 20 while Roberts totaled 12.
"Today was a good confidence booster for us," said Volkmer. "I thought at times we played very well, thought we had some ups and downs, we learned from our mistakes and came away with the win."
The Warriors hope to carry some momentum into Sunday, Sept. 15 when they host Aquinas at noon in the Schaefer Center.
