Sept. 21, 2016 - The Concordia University Chicago women's volleyball team began conference play on the road against Rockford University.  The Cougars came into the Seaver Center notching a road victory in four sets (26-24, 19-25, 28-26, 25-20). 

In set one, the match was back and forth at the beginning. Rockford jumped out to an early 8-4 lead.  The Cougars battled back behind the right arms of Sarah Smith (St. Ignace, MI/LaSalle) and Jaylynn Johnson (Denver, CO/Vista Peak) to get within one. From there on, the Cougars had no answer for freshman August Guest and senior Liberty Hartman as Rockford jumped out to an 18-11 lead.  Late in the set, the Cougars showed some fight, stringing together three straight points from the strong play of junior outside hitter Austin Thompson (Morris, IL/Morris Community) to pull the Cougars within three at 22-19. Thompson's serving gave the Cougars the lead at 23-22.  The set would go to extra points, but Johnson sent home the final two points for the Cougars as she finished the match with a kill to give CUC set one.

In set two, it was all Rockford.  They jumped out to an early 9-3 lead behind multiple errors from CUC, but Smith and Thompson, coupled with a few Rockford service errors brought the Cougars back within two.  The Regents began to grow their lead to 18-12 led by Turek's serving and Hartman's hitting ability.  After a Concordia-Chicago timeout, things didn't get better for the Cougars. Rockford continued their strong play throughout the match to earn them a 25-19 win in set two.

In set three, the Regents came out of the break hot, scoring five straight points that was plagued by multiple errors by the Cougars.  However, the Cougars came back, scoring five of the next six points led by kills from Johnson. In the middle of the set, the Cougars and Regents kept matching each other point for point where no lead was greater than one.  Rockford's Guest started to take over, giving the Regents a three point lead at 20-17 that forced a CUC timeout.  Moments later, the Cougars came out to tie the game behind a couple of Smith kills.  Rockford then came back with two quick points to take the lead 23-21 that forced another CUC timeout. The Cougars came back to generate two quick points of their own to tie the game. As the set would go into extra points, the Cougars sealed the set by a Thompson kill and a Arendia Ruiter (Kane'ohe, HI/Moanalua) block to give the Cougars a 2-1 lead.

In set four, Concordia-Chicago jumped out to an early 2-1 lead with a Ruiter ace.  Cougars manintained that lead, getting out to a 9-7 lead led by strong setting by Nicoletta Crowley (Romeoville, IL/H.S.).  Rockford came back to tie the game, but the Cougars tallied three straight points to force a Rockford timeout.  After the Regents' timeout, the teams matched each other point for point until the Cougars started to pull away with a 20-15 lead late in the set. Rockford's timeout went for naught as the Cougars continued their strong play to earn a 25-20 victory and a W in the win column to begin NACC play.

After the game, Crowley talked about tonight's win and what it means going forward.  "I'm really proud of my team for not giving up after the second set loss, that we were able to push forward, work as a team despite the errors that we had. This win means that we can't keep it in our head, that we have to keep pushing forward to accomplish what we did tonight and to keep up our positive energy throughout the game from everyone on the team that we can put this towards the matches this weekend and in conference."    

Concordia-Chicago returns to action this Friday & Saturday as part of the NACC-IIAC crossover at Benedictine University.  Friday, the Cougars will play Luther College at 3 p.m. and Simpson College at 7 p.m.