(Box Score) Marion, IN — Charting incremental improvement, the Goshen College women’s volleyball team dropped an 18-30, 30-28, 18-30, 17-30 Mid-Central Conference match to Indiana Wesleyan University Tuesday night.
Goshen (6-5, 1-3) was able to take one game from the host Wildcats for the first time since the 2005 season, as IWU entered Tuesday receiving votes in the NAIA Top 25 national poll.
That stat was enough to give Leafs’ head coach Jewel Lehman a sense of optimism, as the Leafs have now suffered 1-3 losses to Indiana Wesleyan in four of the last five regular-season meetings.
“The past several days we have been practicing a different defensive pattern to counter the strong attack we knew we would see tonight,” Lehman said. “While we were still making some adjustments, we were able to dig up quite a few balls this evening. We were very excited to take a game from this team. They are one of the top three teams in the conference for sure and to be able to take a game demonstrates that we are playing at a much higher level than last year.”
Goshen — which dropped a 14-30, 21-30, 27-30 decision on Sept. 27 last season (click here for related article) — rebounded Tuesday night for impressive play in the second of four stanzas. Wesleyan was able to pull away from the Leafs in the first game after alternating the first 22 points, but Goshen responded in the second set: After trailing by 10 points early, the Leafs responded with perhaps its best game of volleyball this season, turning a deficit into a 30-28 win.
“Overall we were playing tougher, communicating better and playing a faster game than we did against Huntington last week,” Lehman said. “It is great to see that we are beginning to make some improvements but we also see that there is a lot of work to do. In the second game, we were down by 10 points and we continued to play hard. We were able to sneak back into game and we made a few key plays at the end to take the victory.”
While unable to secure another win following its dramatic, come-from-behind effort — the Leafs hit just -.020 and .000 in the final two games — Goshen did register a total 67 digs and 43 kills on the evening.
Sophomore Gina Richard was exceptional, finishing with 10 kills and 13 digs. Freshman Peni Acayo tallied 14 kills on a team-leading .135 attack percentage, while sophomore Brittany Herschberger had a team-best 15 digs. Senior Steph Kennell provided 10 digs, while sophomore Alli Hawkins tallied 36 assists.
“In the third and fourth games, we struggled offensively and they were tooling our block quite a bit,” Lehman said. “We must get better at reaching over and sealing the net so we effectively take away an area of the court. Overall we passed well, our serving was okay. We are making progress and it is only a matter of time until we mature on the court. The hard work and persistence is paying off. We know that these games are won in practice and so we will keep pushing each other. As we head into a big weekend, we look for the opportunity to win some matches and we will look for everyone to contribute on the court.”
Goshen will next travel to the University of Michigan-Dearborn to participate in the six-team Michigan-Dearborn Collegiate Classic. The Leafs will take on the hosts Friday at 4 p.m. for a detailed schedule of the two-day event, click here.
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Sophomore Gina Richard