FORT WAYNE, Ind. – The Indiana Tech volleyball team concluded its regular season on Saturday afternoon by splitting a pair of matches, falling to Cornerstone, 3-0, (25-19, 26-24, 25-22) before defeating Northwestern Ohio in the teams' Senior Day match, 3-1 (16-25, 25-16, 25-20, 25-20).
Junior libero
Taylor Kelso etched her name into the Tech record books as she broke the program record for digs in a season after she record 23 in the Cornerstone match to reach 719 for the year, one more than former standout Kayla Hartmann's record set back in 2011.
In the Warriors Senior Day match against the Racers, Tech would fall behind early as UNOH hit .520 in the first set to race out to a 25-16 win. The Warriors would find their stride in the second set however, hitting .371 and limiting the Racers to a .093 clip to win 25-16.
Down 16-13 in the third, the Orange and Black would rattle off four straight points, three coming off the serve of
Cassie Sarabia, to take 17-16 lead. After Northwestern Ohio tied the set back up at 17, Tech would take the next four points, with two straight kills from senior
Katelyn St. Martin, and go on to win the set 25-20 and take a 2-1 lead.
The Warriors would not leave much to chance in the fourth, starting off on a 10-4 run to put the Racers on the defensive and allow Tech to close out the set and send their seniors out with a win.
Sarabia would lead the Warriors with 28 kills over both matches and had two service aces. Kelso would record 48 digs over the seven sets, while St. Martin added 19 kills and 20 digs.
Karli Jones and
Autumn Stokes dished out 37 and 42 assists, respectively, over the day.
Gabby Staggs had 21 kills and led the team in blocks with eight overall.
Tech (21-15, 13-9) finishes the regular season in a tie for fourth place with Siena Heights in the WHAC and will face the Saints in the WHAC Tournament quarterfinals on Friday at top seed Lourdes. Siena Heights gets the fourth seed with their head-to-head victories over the Orange and Black, while Tech gets the fifth seed. First serve is slated for 5 p.m. from Sylvania, Ohio.
