BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – The Carthage College women's volleyball team fell for the second-time in as many weeks to the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin regular season champions, Illinois Wesleyan University, this time falling in the CCIW Women's Volleyball Tournament championship match, 3-1.
The loss drops the Lady Reds to 21-10 on the season, while the #12 Titans improve to 25-5 overall and have won 20-straight matches dating back to September 14th.
The Lady Reds were never able to find their true rhythm in the loss, failing to outhit the Titans in all four sets, including the second set which the Lady Reds won, despite hitting .293 to the IWU's .310. In the three losing sets the Lady Reds struggled with attacks of .194, .132 and .077 to hit .174 for the match, while Illinois Wesleyan finished with a team percentage of .260 and just the fourth set under .200.
Ellie LeCOunt had another strong night at setter as the junior distributed the ball evenly around to her attackers as she dished out 46 assists in the loss.
Nicole Acton led the Lady Reds attack with her best night of her freshman year, putting down a career-high 14 kills and hitting .458, committing just three errors on 24 attacks.
Kaila Johanson,
Shannon Kebisek and
Megan Behrendt rounded out the Lady Reds' kill stats as Johanson and Kebisek each tallied 11 and Behrendt had ten.
Much of Carthage's struggles in the attack were courtesy of the Titan's block, which recorded 12 rejections, nearly half of the Lady Reds' 26 total attack errors on the night. The Lady Reds only had four blocks in the loss with Acton having a hand in two of them to lead Carthage. Also, for Carthage defensively,
Laura de Rosales led Carthage with 16 digs followed by Behrendt with 14, Kebisek with 13, Johanson with 12 and LeCount with 11 to round out the double figures.
The Lady Reds will now have to wait and see if they have built a large enough resume to earn an at-large berth into the 2018 NCAA Division III Women's Volleyball Championship. The NCAA Selection Show will take place on Monday, November 5th at 11:30 a.m. on NCAA.com.
