By: The Green Knights survived with a 15-13 win in the fifth set on Saturday.
Box Score
JACKSONVILLE, Ill. – The Illinois College volleyball came gut-wrenchingly close to victory on Saturday, falling to St. Norbert College in five sets (27-25, 15-25, 25-21, 14-25, 13-15). A changed call on a point that Illinois College had originally won proved critical down the stretch as the Green Knights held on, improving to 6-13 (3-1 Midwest Conference). IC falls to 8-11 (2-2 MWC) with the loss.
Both teams came out firing in the first set, equaling each other with 19 kills against three errors. Illinois College took a 21-17 lead after a
Maddie Ramsey kill, but St. Norbert came back with four straight points to knot the score at 21-21. Another Ramsey kill gave IC a set point at 24-22, but the Green Knights rallied to tie the score at 24-24. Finally, with the count level at 25-25,
MacKenzie Heinz gave the Lady Blues the lead and a bad set by St. Norbert ended it to give Illinois College the early lead.
The second set didn't go nearly as well for Illinois College. St. Norbert posted its highest hitting percentage of the match at .306 for the set and IC wasn't equal to the challenge. The Green Knights led fairly comfortably throughout, then rattled off the last five points after IC pulled to within 20-15.
The Lady Blues got back to business in the third set. IC used a timeout trailing, 12-8, and fell behind 13-8 before four straight points got the Lady Blues back in it. Kills by Ramsey and
Madison Klanke pulled Illinois College even at 15-15, and an
Ali Pankey kill put Illinois College on top for good at 19-18. Heinz had the final kill of the set to give IC the 2-1 lead.
The fourth set was a repeat of the second set. Illinois College managed only three kills in the set while committing seven errors. Five straight points early on put the Green Knights up, 10-6, and they pulled away from there to force a fifth set.
A service error by St. Norbert started the fifth set, and Illinois College looked to be on top, 2-0, after an attack by the Green Knights was called out. However, after a consultation, the call was reversed and IC was forced to deal with a shift in momentum. St. Norbert went on top, 11-7, before the Lady Blues got two kills from Pankey and one from Heinz to pull within one at 11-10. Heinz supplied another kill and an error by the Green Knights made it 13-13 (that's 14-12 in favor of IC without the changed call if you're scoring at home). A kill from Halie Ferry – who ended with a match-high 24 kills – gave St. Norbert the lead and a Heinz attack error ended it with the visitors pulling out the two-point victory.
Pankey ended with 16 kills and 25 digs on the day. Ramsey hit at a team-high rate of .378 with 15 kills.
Elizabeth Ganley handed out 43 assists along with 14 digs.
Madie Budd had a match-high 29 digs and
Kori Hayes delivered four aces.
Illinois College will look to regroup and stay near the top of the MWC standings on Oct. 11 with a road match at Monmouth College starting at 7 p.m.
