KENOSHA, WIS. — The No. 3 Carthage College women's volleyball team defeated Millikin 3-0 in the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin (CCIW) action Wednesday at Tarble Arena to win the CCIW regular-season title. 

It was a back-and-forth effort to start with Carthage (24-3, 8-0 CCIW) holding a 16-13 lead in set one. Millikin (18-12, 6-2 CCIW) rallied to tie the set at 18 until the Lady Reds took a four-point margin at 23-19 and closed the set 25-22. Carthage continued the momentum in the second set with a 16-11 advantage. The Big Blue battled back to cut the deficit to 17-15 before an 8-3 run for Carthage gave the Lady Reds a two-set lead. It was a close third set with the score tied early at 6. Carthage rattled off five straight points to take an 11-6 lead. Millikin closed the gap to one at 15-14 forcing a Lady Reds timeout. Out of the timeout, Carthage scored three straight to make it 18-14 and used another 7-4 run to seal the victory for the Lady Reds 25-18.

Carthage concludes the regular season on Saturday, November 2 with the Carthage Triangular against Aurora starting at 2 p.m. at Tarble Arena. 

Head Coach Leanne Ulmer

"Great result tonight for the Lady Reds! CCIW CHAMPS!!! I am so proud of this team!! I am especially happy for the seniors who have been second multiple times and now have a championship! Millikin played really hard and made us step up our game to get this done. This was a great team win. Now we play Aurora this weekend and get to celebrate our seniors! We are taking things one step at a time! We had a great crowd and we were excited to share this with them."

Quick Facts

• The Lady Reds offense hit .324 in the match marking the eighth time Carthage registered over .300 on the season. 
• Megan Behrendt registered double-digit kills on the day finishing with 14 while Haley Horner and Andrea Kozak finished with nine and eight kills respectively. 
• Ellie LeCount recorded 44 assists in the match. LeCount has tallied 40 or more assists for the seventh time this season.
• The Lady Reds have now won 12 regular-season titles in program history and marks the first title since 2015.  

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