MOUNT VERNON, Iowa – The Illinois College volleyball team challenged Cornell College as much as any Midwest Conference foe has this season, but the Rams finally prevailed in a grueling four-setter, winning by scores of 32-30, 30-28, 24-26, 25-18. The Lady Blues wrap up their year at 22-7. Cornell advances to tomorrow's MWC championship match, facing St. Norbert College at 1 p.m.
Though each set was a battle, the first two in particular required Cornell to dig deep to come away with the lead. In the opening set, a six-point run from the Lady Blues turned an 8-5 deficit into an 11-8 lead and forced an early timeout from the Rams. The score tightened up from there until a kill from
Maddie Ramsey and a block from
Elizabeth Ganley and
Rebecca Shields made it 21-18 and had Cornell using its final timeout of the set. Out of that break, Cornell scored five straight and was two points away from the win before the Lady Blues rallied. IC fought off two set points to make it 25-25 before earning a set point of its own after a
MacKenzie Heinz kill. The set continued on with neither side giving in until the score was knotted at 30-30. There, a service error from IC gave Cornell its fifth set point and the Rams were finally able to convert to take the lead.
Illinois College fell behind early in the second set, 9-4, but the Lady Blues gathered themselves quickly and took a 10-9 edge thanks in part to two kills each from Ramsey and
Brenna Dameris. From that point on, the largest lead either side could manage was just two points. Late in the set, a Dameris kill gave Illinois College a 23-21 lead, but an attack error and an Allison Eikenberry kill followed to knot the score at 23-23. Following an Eikenberry error, the Lady Blues had the first of three set points, but once again the set would require some bonus volleyball. Two overs from Heinz fell in for kills down the stretch, yet Cornell did enough to stay in it and the Rams scored the final two points on a Nicole Ciari kill and an IC error to take the 2-0 lead in the match.
Down two sets to the No. 1 seed on their home court, it would have been easy for Illinois College to give in. Instead, the Lady Blues revived their hopes with their best offensive set of the night. After trailing 2-0, IC would come back to lead 7-3 after the serve of Shields yielded three aces in quick succession. Illinois College maintained a five-point cushion much of the set, but the Rams weren't done. Barbie Becker slammed down two kills to help Cornell turn a 22-20 deficit into a 23-22 lead. Suddenly two points away from losing the match, IC hung on as Pankey tied the match at 23-23, then a kill from Ramsey leveled the score at 24-24. Dameris did the rest on the serve of
Cheyanne Jockisch, notching consecutive kills to give the Lady Blues the 26-24 win.
A brief three-point run from Illinois College tied the fourth set at 6-6, but the Lady Blues ran out of steam down the stretch. Cornell scored four straight to take a 13-8 lead, then stretched that out to 18-10. Following an Illinois College timeout, a revived Lady Blues team got the serve back after a Cornell error and managed to get to within 19-15. However, a pause in play and a conference at the scorer's table ended up with a change to the score that removed two points from the board for IC and added a point to Cornell's score. Suddenly, the manageable four-point deficit was seven and the Lady Blues could get no closer than five points the rest of the way.
Ciari, the MWC's Player of the Year, ended with 23 kills and Alissa McEndaffer added 21. The Lady Blues were led by Dameris with 17 kills. Ramsey supplied 16 kills and had a match-high .405 hitting percentage. Pankey recorded a double-double with 12 kills and 27 digs. Ganley ended her night one dig shy of a double-double, handing out 53 assists with nine digs. Jockisch had 25 digs in the back row for IC and
Madie Budd added on 22 of her own.
Friday night's loss marked the end of the Illinois College careers of four seniors –
Brooke Brandis, Heinz, Jockisch and Shields. All three of IC's All-MWC selections – Ganley, Pankey and Ramsey – are set to return for their senior seasons in 2019. The Lady Blues end with a winning percentage of .759 for the season, the highest by the team since a 23-6 mark (.793) in 1996.
