By: Playing the final match before Midwest Conference play begins next week, the Lady Blues swept past Blackburn for their first road win of the season.
Box Score CARLINVILLE, Ill. – Playing the team's final match before the start of Midwest Conference play next week, the Illinois College volleyball team got a confidence-boosting win on Wednesday night on the road at Blackburn. The Lady Blues were able to overcome occasional struggles and snap a four-match losing streak with a 3-0 (25-22, 26-24, 25-14) victory.
Feeding off its home crowd early on, Blackburn led much of the first set and held a 15-11 lead before Illinois College got it rolling. Consecutive kills from
Mikayla Greenwood and
Erin Washington forced the Beavers into a timeout, but IC kept the momentum up and eventually took an 18-16 lead. Blackburn came back to tie it at 18-18 until
Erin Satterlee broke the deadlock and IC cruised from there for a 25-22 win.
Things were even tougher in the second set. Blackburn stormed out to a 14-6 edge and seemed on its way to a match-tying win. Washington was in the middle of IC's comeback with a pair of kills and a block assist that got it to 14-11. After the Beavers went back up, 18-11, Satterlee and
Holly Crocher teamed up for a pair of blocks that helped the Lady Blues close to within 18-15. With the set at 20-16 in Blackburn's favor, IC rattled off four straight points to knot it at 20-20, only to see the Beavers respond with four straight to earn a set point at 24-20. Unfazed, Crocher got a kill off a
Courtney Louveau pass, then served to Blackburn and saw the Beavers commit four straight attack errors. With set point suddenly in their favor, the Lady Blues didn't let the opportunity slip.
Lisa Lowry had the winning kill in a thrilling 26-24 win.
The energy seeped out of Blackburn in the third set and Illinois College pounced. Seven of the first nine points went to IC and the Beavers never got closer than three after that. The combo of Satterlee and Crocher again earned the Lady Blues their final two points of the match with consecutive blocks to put an exclamation point on the 25-14 victory.
Washington led the IC attack with eight kills on the night. Louveau had 21 assists and Lowry had 17 digs. The Lady Blues totaled 11 blocks in the match to zero for Blackburn.
Illinois College jumps into conference action next week, beginning with a match at Knox on Sept. 30 at 7 p.m. The home conference opener comes on Oct. 2 with a 7 p.m. match versus Lake Forest.
