DUBUQUE, Iowa – The St. Olaf College volleyball team dropped both of its matches at the University of Dubuque River City Classic on Friday evening, dropping a three-set match to No. 15 Carthage College before being on the wrong side of a five-setter against the host Spartans.
In the opener, Carthage (7-4) hit a blistering .441 on its way to a 25-19, 25-22, 25-20 victory over St. Olaf (2-6), which suffered its fourth loss of the season against a ranked opponent. Later in the evening, the Oles rallied from two sets down to force a fifth set, but eventually fell to Dubuque (5-7) by a 25-14, 25-22, 21-25, 14-25, 15-12 margin in the second five-set match between the two teams this season.
No. 15 Carthage 3, St. Olaf 0 | Box Score
The nationally-ranked Firebirds had 48 kills against just seven errors to hit .441 on their way to sweeping St. Olaf in its first match of the night.
Sophomore
Catherine Moore paced the Oles with a team-high 10 kills, while first year
Madison Gully had eight and senior
Katelyn Lannom had six on 10 swings. Senior
Brynne Gray recorded her fifth-straight double-double with 19 assists and a team-best 10 digs for the Oles.
Carthage used a 6-2 run midway through the first set to turn a 10-8 advantage into a 16-10 lead and led by at least five the rest of the way. The Oles saved four set points after facing their largest deficit of the set at 24-15 before an attack error closed out the set for the Firebirds.
After hitting .371 in the opening set, Carthage had just one attack error and hit .406 in the second set. Gully had three kills as part of a 6-3 start to the set for the Oles, but the Firebirds won the next five points to take the lead. Carthage led by as many as four until St. Olaf won four-straight points – two on kills by Moore – to even the set at 21-21 but won just one point the rest of the set.
The Firebirds soared out to a 7-1 lead early in the third set and led 16-11 before the Oles won five points in a row to tie the score. St. Olaf took its first lead of the set at 18-17, but, like the second set, Carthage finished the set strong by winning eight of the final 10 points.
Dubuque 3, St. Olaf 2 | Box Score
Gully and Moore combined for 42 kills as St. Olaf fought back from being down two sets to none to force a fifth set, but Dubuque jumped out to a 10-4 lead in the fifth set and hung on for the win. Gully had a match- and career-high 22 kills while hitting .439 for the Oles, while Moore was one shy of her career high with 19 on a night where she hit .444.
Sophomore
Nora Zielke and senior
Katelyn Lannom added 11 kills apiece for St. Olaf, which hit a season-high .349 as a team and had 74 kills in the match, compared to 55 for the Spartans. Junior
Selena Rodriguez had a career-high 30 digs to go with a career-best 16 assists, while Gray added another double-double with a season-high 36 assists and a career-high 24 digs.
In the deciding set, Dubuque regrouped from dropping the third and fourth sets to take a 10-4 lead, but St. Olaf rallied to get with a point at 12-11. That was as close as the Oles would get as the Spartans won four of the final five points. Dubuque had just one attack error in the decider compared to four for St. Olaf.
The Spartans rolled to a 25-14 win in set one and took a two-sets-to-none lead after claiming a tight second set, 25-22. The Oles hammered 19 kills in the third and 16 more in the fourth to even the match with set wins of 25-21 and 25-14 to extend the match to a fifth set.
St. Olaf closes out the weekend against Westminster College (Mo.) on Saturday, Sept. 18 at 12 p.m. at Loras College's Lillis Court.
