BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – The Carthage College women's volleyball team has advanced to the 2018 College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin Tournament championship match on Friday night after defeating North Park University in three sets, 3-0.
 
The win moves the second-seeded Lady Reds to 21-9 on the year, while the sixth-seeded Vikings' season comes to an end at 17-14 overall.  Additionally, the Lady Reds will now play for in their fourth championship match in the past five years.  During that run, the Lady Reds have won the previous three title matches they have appeared in.
 
The Lady Reds topped the Vikings in every statistical category in the win with a 43-36 edge in kills, 4-3 in aces, 6-5 in blocks, 40-34 in assists and 48-42 in digs.  Carthage opened and closed the match with very strong hitting performances, which were both over .400 and committing just five combined attack errors in the first and third sets, while North Park combined for 11 attack errors and hitting percentages of .229 and .143 respectively.  North Park battled to try and win the second set, taking a 19-16 lead late, but Carthage was able to regain the lead and pull away after a 23-23 tie to set up the sweep.
 
Ellie LeCount had a strong night in the win, pacing the Lady Reds with 34 assists and adding five kills of her own on nine attacks for a .556 hitting percentage.
 
A balanced Carthage attack was led by Megan Behrendt with a team-high 11 kills followed by Shannon Kebisek with nine, Nicole Acton with eight and Kaila Johanson with seven.
 
Defensively, Katie Laio was dominant at the net, as the senior had a hand in every block with six assists, followed closely by Behrendt with four.  Kebisek finished in a tie for the match-high with 14 digs, while Behrendt and LeCount each had nine.
 
The Lady Reds will now await the winner of Friday's second semifinal, as they will take on the winner of the top-seeded Illinois Wesleyan University Titans and fourth-seeded Millikin University Big Blue.  The second semifinal is set for 7:00 p.m. and Saturday's championship is set for 6:00 p.m.