Box Score | Box Score (PDF)
MOREHEAD, Ky. – The anticipated rematch between Morehead State’s and Austin Peay’s volleyball teams, ranked first and second in the Ohio Valley Conference, was all it was hyped as.
MSU gutted out a 3-2 (15-25, 25-18, 25-17, 17-25, 15-13) victory over the Lady Govs in a match where the visitors controlled the first set, the Eagles had momemtum in the second and third frames and APSU grabbed it back with a fourth set victory. The teams battled neck-and-neck with no one really ever gaining true momentum in the final set.
The victory pushed MSU’s OVC mark to 12-1 with now a three-match lead in the standings over APSU, which fell to 9-4 in OVC matches and 18-6 overall. The Lady Govs had defeated MSU 3-2 in Clarksville earlier in the season.
Kaitlin Craven, Holly Evans and Ellie Roberson combined for 49 of MSU’s 62 kills, and the trio hit a combined .407. Craven led with 18 kills and a .457 attack efficiency off 35 attempts and just two errors. Evans, the OVC’s top hitter, landed 17 spikes with only two mistakes on 34 swings for a .441 percentage, while Roberson smashed 14 kills while hitting .324. With the Eagles leading 14-13 in the fifth set, Roberson ended the match on her 14th kill.
Ilyanna Hernandez topped the Lady Govs’ attack with 16 kills. Jessica Mollman hit .429 with 11 kills, and Kayla Grantham spiked 12 attempts in play while topping the APSU players with a .545 hitting total. On defense, Paige Economos led all players with 30 digs.
The teams entered the match ranked one (APSU) and two (MSU) in the OVC in service aces, but both teams had trouble with accuracy tonight, combining for 27 service errors and nine aces.
For MSU on defense, freshman Leslie Schellhaas moved to libero for sets two through five and came up with a career high 21 of MSU’s 65 total digs. Craven completed a double-double with 12 digs. Kirstie Brangers helped lead the Eagles to a team hitting percentage of .318 with 53 assists. The Eagles also were strong at the net where they tallied nine team blocks. Evans chipped in with two solo and three assisted rejections, while Emma Keough moved into second place alone in career block assists (272) at MSU with four tonight.
The Lady Govs opened the match in control, hitting .333 in the first set with 12 kills. MSU made six errors and hit just .139. But, the Eagles rebounded to smash 30 kills with only three errors in sets two and three. They had 17 alone with set two for a .536 percentage.
APSU tied the match at 2-2 by limiting its hitting mistakes to only one with 15 kills (.452) in the fourth set. In the fifth both teams couldn’t miss and at one point each had nine kills and no errors.
The Eagles never trailed in the fifth set but they also never led by more than three. With the score tied at 10, APSU committed a service error and Keough and Evans combined on a block to give the Eagles a 12-10 lead. From that point, APSU never trailed by more than two as they kept scoring a point when MSU would take a two-point lead.
The Eagles had their first set point at 14-12, but Mollman landed a kill to quiet MSU’s largest home crowd of the season. Roberson took a set from Brangers and crushed a shot right down the middle of the court to win it for the Eagles.
The Eagles will host Southeast Missouri on Friday at 7 p.m.
