During their first matches at home this season, the Drake University women’s volleyball team fell to the UIC Flames and secured a victory against the Valparaiso University Beacons.
Drake lost their first home game on Sept. 29 against UIC, two sets to three. The match itself was tight, with the teams keeping up with each other right up until the final set. UIC won the first, fourth and fifth sets, while Drake won the second and third.
“We knew that UIC would be a tough team, and they are a very good team, and it came down to a five set match, and we came up a little bit short,” Darrin McBroom, head coach of the women’s volleyball team, said.
According to McBroom, middle hitters Ashlynn Kuhn and Kacie Rewerts were strong during the game. Addison Beagle, Macy Daufeldt, Haley Bush, Taylor Oberpriller, Kuhn and Rewerts started the game, and Jada Wills was libero.
The Bulldogs spent most of the first set attempting to catch up to the Flames, who held a lead for most of the set. The final score of the first set was 25-21. In the second set, Drake started off behind UIC but took a strong lead and won 25-19. Drake also led the third set, winning 25-22, but in the fourth set, they lost their initial lead, losing 25-22. UIC took the lead for all of the fifth set, at times up by 10. Drake lost the tiebreaker set 15-7.
“[It was] not our best night. We hope to bring a win for the team tomorrow night,” Beagle said.
Sophomore setter Beagle won Missouri Valley Conference Freshman of the Year last year. Beagle said she appreciates “having the team that got me [the award] and helped me [come in as] a freshman.”
Kuhn, a junior, led the team in kills, with a total of 13 over the five sets. Rewerts, a senior, led the team in blocks with eight total blocks.
Going forward, McBroom plans to regroup and discuss the match’s errors.
“I’ve been really proud of our athletes,” McBroom said. “They’re a very disciplined, focused group, and we got to just get better at dealing with adversity.”
On Sept. 30, the team won their second match of the weekend against Valparaiso in the fourth set after a highly contested game full of tips and challenges. The team won the first, third and fourth sets but lost the second with a tight score of 27-25.
The two teams were neck-and-neck for the first two sets, the second of which ended contentiously. Valparaiso challenged the referee on the last point (that Drake was initially awarded) which won them the set, changing the score from 26-26 to 27-25.
Drake held strong leads for the third and fourth set, winning the fourth by nine points. Graduate student Oberpriller led the team with 22 kills, and Rewerts once again led the team in blocks with a total of seven.
“We were really looking forward to this game to show everybody what we know we can do,” Rewerts said. “And I feel like we did that tonight.”
The match was also alumni night, and during a break between the second and third sets, the alumni posed with Griff II.
After this past weekend, Drake has a season record of 10-6. The team hopes to qualify for the MVC championship again this year and take home a win.
“We played really well against some high-level ranked teams and came up short [last year],” Beagle said. “So we’re gonna keep working towards a win.”
Drake volleyball plays next on Oct. 6 at Indiana State University.
