River Forest, Ill. -- The Concordia University Chicago women's volleyball team welcomed the Scarlet Hawks of the Illinois Institute of Technology to Geiseman Gymnasium Tuesday night for their final home match of the season. It was a hard fought battle, with the Cougars falling in four sets.
The Cougars jumped out to an early lead in the first set, forcing a Scarlet Hawks timeout after going up 11-4. IIT put together a bit of a run out of the timeout, chipping away at the lead before eventually pulling even at 17. The teams traded the next six points and things were tied at 20 heading down to the wire. The Scarlet Hawks won the final five rallies, however, and took the set 25-20.
Set two was an intense back-and-forth affair. After falling behind 5-1, the Cougars put together a 5-0 scoring run to take the lead. From that point on, neither team was able to build a lead bigger than two until the Cougars went on another 5-0 run to go ahead 17-14. Ahead 18-15, senior Mikala Perino (De Pere, Wis.) delivered a kill to give CUC its largest lead of the set.
Things were far from over, however, as the match eventually wound up tied at 24. A kill from junior Joy Greco (Brookfield, Ill.) gave the Cougars a 25-24 advantage and they did not relinquish it, taking the second set 26-24.
The Cougars were unable to carry the momentum into the third set and couldn't quite overcome an early attack by the Scarlet Hawks. IIT took the set by a final of 25-13 to take a 2-1 lead in the match.
Facing another early deficit in the fourth set, Greco delivered back-to-back acs to even things at six. The set quickly became another tightly contested one, with the teams trading blows throughout the duration. Tied at 16, Perino delivered a kill to put the team in front. It was again a thriller down the stretch, but this time the Cougars did not prevail. The Scarlet Hawks won by a final of 25-22 to take the match.
Top Performers
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Greco led the team in both kills and points, with 14 and 16.5, respectively.
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Junior Alyssa Henline (Fort Wayne, Ind.) tallied 10 kills and 17 digs. She had 12 points on the night.
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Senior Alex Clasen (Naperville, Ill.) had four service aces.
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Senior Julia Beers (Mishawaka, Ind.) had a team-high 18 digs.
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Sophomore Isabelle Vernengo (Plainfield, Ill.) led the team with 34 assists.
The team wrapped up its home season on Tuesday, but will be back on the road Friday night at Alverno College. The match is set to begin at 7 p.m., and a stream will be available through cucougars.com/coverage.
