MOUNT VERNON, Iowa – The Illinois College volleyball team had its 2019 season come to an end on Friday night with a 3-2 loss (15-25, 25-22, 25-14, 24-26, 13-15) to St. Norbert College in the semifinals of the Midwest Conference Tournament. The Lady Blues end the year with an overall record of 21-8.
St. Norbert took advantage of a slow start from Illinois College to jump out to a 1-0 lead after the first set. The Lady Blues had a number of attack errors and receive errors throughout the set, allowing the Green Knights to go up as many as eight points midway through the set. A strong closing stretch from St. Norbert nailed down a 25-15 victory.
Illinois College got back in it in the second set, opening fast and taking a 10-5 lead. The Lady Blues maintained that five-point lead much of the way and a
Maddie Ramsey kill gave IC a set point at 24-20. Though St. Norbert fought two of those set points off,
Ali Pankey put it away at 25-22.
The third set was all Illinois College. Ahead 6-4, the Lady Blues reeled off six straight points with kills from
Elizabeth Ganley,
Jen Humbolt and
Ali Pankey. Later on, four straight points made it 19-10 and forced St. Norbert into a timeout. With the score 19-14, IC scored six straight off a series of kills and blocks from Pankey and
Abbie Horstmann to put it away for a 2-1 edge.
Illinois College led much of the way in the fourth set, but St. Norbert rallied to tie the score at 17-17. After four straight gave the advantage back to the Lady Blues late in the set, IC was able to trade points with the Green Knights until the score was 24-19. With Illinois College needing only one point to win the match, St. Norbert staged a remarkable comeback, tallying seven points in a row to swing the set in its favor.
A stunned Illinois College squad managed to take a 5-3 lead in the fifth set, but St. Norbert answered with seven straight points to take a 10-5 lead as the teams switched ends of the floor. With the score 12-7, the Lady Blues rallied with two
Madison Klanke kills and two SNC attack errors to cut the deficit down to one. The teams then traded service errors before a ball-handling error from the Green Knights knotted the score at 13-13. Following a kill from Haley Bartz to give St. Norbert a match point, the subsequent serve from Jessica Geurts clipped the net and fell over for an ace, ending the match in heart-wrenching fashion.
Ganley ended the match with 54 assists. Pankey had a double-double with 14 kills and 23 digs. Three others reached double-digits in kills with Klanke adding 12 kills and both Horstmann and
Brenna Dameris ending with 10 each.
Madie Budd added 19 digs on the back line. Up front, both Horstmann and
Maddie Ramsey had four block assists.
