JACKSONVILLE, Ill. – The Illinois College volleyball team earned a bid to the Midwest Conference Tournament for the second season in a row and made a statement to the rest of the MWC with a 3-0 sweep (25-21, 25-19, 25-22) of Grinnell College on Friday night in Sherman Gymnasium. The win puts the Lady Blues at 18-6 (7-1 MWC) on the season.
Illinois College came out red-hot in the first set, hitting a match-high .349 with 19 kills against only four attack errors. Despite that, Grinnell stayed in it and rallied back from multiple deficits to tie the set for the final time at 19-19. Finally, three straight kills from
Madison Klanke gave the Lady Blues a 22-19 edge. The Pioneers scored two straight to pull within a point, but IC ended it with a
Maddie Ramsey kill,
Elizabeth Ganley service ace and Klanke block to take a 1-0 lead.
Grinnell suddenly became error-prone in the next two sets and Illinois College was more than willing to accept the charity of 10 attack errors from the Pioneers to go up 2-0 in the match. Once again, the teams were even for quite some time and an IC attack error knotted the score at 13-13. Horstmann slammed down a kill to make it 14-13 and Pankey followed with an ace. After a Rachel Woock error, the Pioneers were forced into a timeout trailing by three but the Lady Blues were not to be stopped. The run reached seven points and gave IC a 20-13 lead before Grinnell could get back on the board. The Lady Blues earned their first set point at 24-16 and put the set away on a kill from
Brenna Dameris.
The third set came down to who could survive their mistakes and it was the Lady Blues, but only barely. Each team had nine attack errors in the set and IC gave up a pair of aces but managed to hold on anyway. Trailing 4-2, Illinois College scored eight straight points, seemingly grabbing the match by the scruff of the neck. Grinnell stormed back into it and took the lead back at 18-17. That's when the Pioneers really lost their poise. A kill from Pankey tied the score at 18-18 and that would be the final point of the match that the Lady Blues scored on their own. The last seven points came off of errors of one kind or another. With the score still tied at 22-22, a service error gave IC the lead for good and back-to-back attack errors ended it.
Klanke led the Lady Blues on the night with 11 kills. Horstmann added 10 and Pankey ended with nine. Ganley recorded a double-double with 38 assists and 11 digs.
Madie Budd led IC with 16 digs and Pankey added 12 as well.
Tomorrow afternoon at 1 p.m. will be Senior Day for five members of the 2019 Illinois College team and will also be an opportunity for the Lady Blues to potentially earn the right to host the MWC Tournament. A win over Cornell College (15-7, 7-0 MWC) would ensure that IC finishes no worse than in a tie for first place in the conference standings and at that point it would come down to tiebreaker procedures to determine the host of the four-team tournament on Nov. 8 and 9.
