By: Nothing came easy on Senior Day for the Lady Blues, but IC kept the ball in the air with 135 digs and came away with a 3-2 victory.
Box Score JACKSONVILLE, Ill. – In a wild, back-and-forth match to close out the 2015 season, the Illinois College volleyball team survived in five sets to defeat Grinnell, 3-2 (22-25, 25-22, 25-22, 13-25, 15-6), on Saturday afternoon in Sherman Gymnasium. Four players ended with double-digit kills for IC, while six had at least 10 digs.
On Senior Day for
Allison Perkins,
Holly Crocher and
Erin Satterlee, each of the three members of the Class of 2016 played a large role for the Lady Blues. Perkins capped off an amazing senior season with 41 digs. Crocher ended with 13 kills as well as two solo blocks and two block assists. Satterlee was one of three IC players to record a double-double, putting the finishing touches on her career with 10 kills and 13 digs.
Grinnell came into the day with only two wins on the season, but a 25-22 win for the Pioneers in the first set showed that this would be no walk in the park. Long rallies were the name of the game from the outset, but Grinnell won some quick points down the stretch, stunning the home crowd with three straight points after the set was tied at 22-22.
Things looked even worse for Illinois College halfway through the second set. After an ace from Grinnell's Deanna Taylor, the Pioneers led 16-8 looking to take a two-set lead on the Lady Blues. Two freshmen stepped up with big plays to turn the set around. First
MacKenzie Heinz smashed a kill to stop Grinnell's three-point run, then
Rebecca Shields recorded a block at the net to make it 16-10. The score was still 20-14 when a block from Crocher started an eight-point turnaround for IC to take a 22-20 lead. Crocher ended the set as well, getting the final kill on a
Courtney Louveau pass to knot the match at 1-1.
The third set turned into a battle late, but the Lady Blues were comfortably ahead most of the way.
Lisa Lowry had five kills in the set and Shields had four as well, helping Illinois College establish as much as a six-point lead at 20-14. Out of nowhere, Grinnell stormed back into the set by winning six of the next eight points to tie it at 22-22 before Lowry put it away with consecutive kills and the Pioneers committed an attacking error on set point.
The momentum quickly slipped away from Illinois College in the fourth set. Grinnell had 14 kills and no errors to open up a large lead early and cruise to the match-tying win.
In the fifth, Illinois College scored four straight off kills from Satterlee, Crocher and Louveau to take a 5-2 lead and force Grinnell into a timeout. Heinz capped off another three-point spurt with a kill to make it 8-3 as the teams switched sides of the net midway through. With the score at 10-5, Shields had back-to-back kills and then teamed with Lowry for a block to make it 13-5. The final two points of the final-set victory for the Lady Blues came off a Shields kill and a block from Lowry and Louveau to end it.
Lowry ended her day with a double-double of 14 kills and 19 digs. Louveau was the other IC player with a double-double, dishing out 48 assists and registering 13 digs. Freshmen
Brooke Brandis and
Brenna Garland had big defensive days as well. Brandis ended with 21 digs on the afternoon and Garland added 13.
Illinois College ends 2015 with an overall record of 13-15 (3-7 Midwest Conference). In
Kristy Duncan's second year in charge of the program, the Lady Blues recorded the most wins by an IC volleyball team since 2008.
