Oct. 22, 2016 - The Concordia-Chicago Cougars played the second of back-to-back matches this evening as they hosted Edgewood College at Geiseman Gymnasiun. Like last night's match against Wisconsin Lutheran College, CUC made their opponent work a little extra for a victory. In tonight's match, the Cougars took the Eagles to a fifth set before running out of gas. Edgewood won the deciding set handily and prevailed by scores of 25-27, 25-22, 25-17, 24-26, 15-6.

The Cougars served notice to the Eagles in the first set not to expect a cakewalk. CUC fell behind 10-4 and then 14-6 but rallied behind kills from Raven Burns and Arendia Ruiter, along with an ace by Alyssa Surewicz. Edgewood recovered briefly and appeared to be back in control as they took a 21-15 lead. However, the Cougars got a stop and then charged back a second time. Back-to-back aces by Austin Thompson brought the home team to within 21-19. The Eagles were unable to wrest control away from the Cougars at this point, and Jaylynn Johnson's kill gave CUC its first lead at 24-23. The Eagles fought back and were poised to steal the set as they scored the next two points, but Johnson came back with another kill to knot the score again. An attack error put CUC at set point, and Ruiter's ace marked the final point as CUC took set one 27-25.

Set two produced one of the closest battles of the season from start to finish. Only when the final point of the set was scored did either team have a lead greater than two points. Edgewood led 22-20 when Thompson made a kill and then served up an ace to tie the score. However, EC's Elizabeth Evans answered with a kill to put the serve back with the Eagles. The Cougars then committed attack errors on the next two plays to wrap up the set and even the match at 1-1.

While set two was virtually point-for-point, set three wsa defined by a series of runs. Edgewood used a 4-0 run and a 5-0 run to build a 12-5 lead. However, CUC answered moments later with a 4-0 run of their own, helped by a Nikki Crowley kill and two aces by Shelby Spitz. That made the EC lead 14-12, but another 5-0 run by the Eagles would be too much to overcome. That made the score 23-14, and the Eagles would shortly have a 2-1 lead in the match.

The Cougars stormed out in set four with the first three points, but the Eagles shortly overcame CUC's early surge and held the lead for much of the way. The Cougars stayed close but appeared to be in trouble when the visitors took a 22-18 lead. However, Ruiter's kill stopped the bleeding, and Courtney Luciano served up the next five points which included kills by Johnson and Thompson. Luciano herself served up the sixth point of the run, an ace that put the lead at 24-22. However, Edgewood got kills by Emily Chaussee and Evans to tie things up at 24-24.  It was Thompson to the rescue for the Cougars as she scored consecutive kills to give the Cougars a 26-24 win and send the match to the deciding set.

Unfortunately for the Cougars, set five was a huge anticlimax. The Eagles scored four of the first five points and eventually built an 8-3 advantage. Concordia-Chicago had no more runs left in them, and Edgewood came away with a 15-6 win, putting an end to an exciting match which lasted just a few minutes shy of two hours.

Chaussee led the Eagles with 16 kills, a .438 attack and 16 digs. Evans added 15 kills and 11 digs, and Savannah Koester had 10 kills to go with eight aces. For the Cougars, Ruiter led the way with 16 kills and a .225 attack. Thompson added 13 kills and three aces, and Burns 10 kills. Hannah Johnson led the defensive effort with 19 digs.

Concordia-Chicago will host the Illinois Institute of Technology on Tuesday night at 7 p.m. in the final home match of the year.