Box Score
The Carthage College women's volleyball team (32-5), ranked eighth in the final, regular-season American Volleyball Coaches Association NCAA Division III poll, opened play in the 62-team NCAA Division III Women's Volleyball Championship on Thursday, Nov. 12 with a 3-0 sweep of Simpson College (21-14) at the Central Regional Championship at Washington University (Mo.) Field House in St. Louis, Mo.
In the other quarterfinal contests, No. 22 Nebraska Wesleyan University (18-11) defeated Wisconsin-Platteville (22-15), 3-1,; No. 30 St. Mary's University (Minn., 22-9) defeated Thomas More College (28-11), 3-1; and top-seeded and No. 4 Washington (Mo., 29-4) swept Webster University (20-13), 3-0. Carthage (32-5) advances to a Friday, Nov. 13 semifinal match against Nebraska Wesleyan (18-11), beginning at 4:30 p.m., with St. Mary's (Minn., 22-9) playing Washington (Mo., 29-4) in the other semifinal at 7 p.m. The Lady Reds are making their fifth-consecutive regional-championship appearance.
Carthage's winning set scores over Simpson were 25-18, 25-16 and 25-21. In the first set, Carthage jumped out to a 12-5 lead. Trailing, 14-7, the Storm closed to within four, 14-10. Simpson got to within three on two occasions, the last at 16-13. Simpson trailed by four, 21-17, before the Lady Reds closed out the set with a 4-1 run to win by seven, 25-18. In set two, the Lady Reds quickly opened a 7-0 lead. The Storm rallied with a 7-3 run to close to within three, 10-7. A 7-2 Carthage bumped the Lady Reds' lead to eight points, 17-9. Simpson made a four-point set, 19-15, but Carthage closed out the set with a 6-1 run to win by nine, 25-16.
Set three was close. While Carthage had an early, five-point at 7-2, Simpson came back to take its first lead in the match, 11-10. The Lady Reds answered with a 9-3 run to go up by five, 19-14. The Storm edged to within two, 23-21, but Carthage hung on to win by four, 25-21. Michelle Madeja (So., Naperville, Ill./Neuqua Valley) led the Lady Reds with eight kills and hit .231. Rachel Swoboda (Jr., De Pere, Wis./Wrightstown) had seven kills and hit .368 with three service aces, while Lauren Dembkowski (So., Mount Prospect, Ill./Arlington Heights-Hersey) also had seven kills.
Nebraska Wesleyan's winning set scores over Wisconsin-Platteville were 25-17, 20-25, 26-24 and 25-21. Laura Brammeier led Nebraska Wesleyan with 17 kills and hot. 224, while Brittny Barber had 13 kills. Samantha Rampart had 13 kills for the losing Pioneers. St. Mary's winning scores over Thomas More were 23-25, 25-21, 25-20 and 27-25. Sarah Gardner and Jessica Mate each collected 11 kills for St. Mary's, while Brandi Corbello had 10 kills for Thomas More. Washington's winning set scores over Webster were 25-17, 25-14 and 25-23. Lauren Budde had 15 kills and hit. 303 for the Bears while setter Marilee Fisher had 36 assists.
“Without a doubt, we're happy to have the first match out of the way," said Carthage head coach
Leanne Ulmer. "Everybody was a little nervous, but the girls did a nice job. We played OK, but Nebraska Wesleyan is big, and we're going to have to play better. They're not only big, they're very athletic. The challenge is on. Simpson didn't play their best, but maybe we had a little something to do with that. As a coach, you worry about everything, and you definitely worry about playing low-seeded teams. You don't want to take any team for granted this time of year, and I've already heard about upsets all over the place in other regions. We did an especially-nice job of protecting the lead, and Simpson only led once in the entire match. We like to play aggressively, and when stop being that way, sometimes we get in trouble. After we got behind in the third set, we started playing better defense and got some better swings.”
