By: The IC volleyball team got its MWC season off to a successful start with a 3-0 victory over Knox on Thursday night.
Box Score
JACKSONVILLE, Ill. – The Illinois College volleyball extended its winning streak to six matches and earned an important Midwest Conference victory with a 3-0 sweep (25-21, 25-17, 25-17) of Knox College on Thursday night. The Lady Blues improve to 11-6 (1-0 MWC), while the Prairie Fire drop to 3-15 (0-1 MWC).
Illinois College used a big eight-point swing midway through the first set to turn a 10-8 deficit into a 16-10 lead, but Knox fought back and ran off six straight points to tie the set at 20-20. Down the stretch,
Rebecca Shields put the Lady Blues ahead, 22-21, with a kill and the Prairie Fire then committed three straight attack errors to give IC the early lead.
In the second set, IC and Knox went back and forth all the way to 13-13 before
Lisa Lowry had back-to-back kills and the Prairie Fire committed an attack error to put the Lady Blues on top, 16-13. With the score 16-14, Lowry and Shields had a kill apiece and Knox had four more attacking errors to push the lead to 22-14. Illinois College was on cruise control from there and kills from Lowry,
Maddie Ramsey and one more Knox attack error gave the Lady Blues a 2-0 lead in the match.
Looking for the sweep, Illinois College raced out to a 7-1 lead in the third set. Knox made a push to get back into it, cutting the lead to 14-12, but after an IC timeout the Lady Blues opened up another large lead.
Ali Pankey and Lowry had the final two kills to put the finishing touches on the match.
Knox ended the match with 22 kills against 25 attack errors for a -.025 hitting percentage. No Prairie Fire player had more than six kills. Lowry led Illinois College with 16 kills, while Ramsey added eight and Pankey had six on a match-best .286 hitting percentage.
Elizabeth Ganley recorded a double-double with 34 assists and 10 digs, while the defensive effort was led by
Brenna Garland, who had 19 digs.
Katie Tonry added 14 digs as well.
Illinois College continues MWC play with a home match against Lawrence University (5-11, 0-1 MWC) on Oct. 1 at 11 a.m. in Sherman Gymnasium.
