Pride survive Graceland comeback for 3-2 road victory

LAMONI, Iowa - Looking to snap a two-match losing streak, the Clarke University women's volleyball team earned a five set victory over Graceland University to start a two-match road trip on Friday night.

The Pride looked dominant through two sets earning a pair of 25-15 set wins in the first and second before the Yellowjackets would edge out a 25-23 win in the third then run away at 25-16 in the fourth before CU built a lead in the fifth on their way to a three-point, 15-12 match-clinching win in the fifth.

Outside of the fourth set, Clarke's attack was able to limit their mistakes with no more than four hitting errors in sets one, two, three, and five to hit for a .238 percentage or better led by a near record-setting performance from sophomore outside hitter Maya Watters.

Watters finished with a match-high 24 kills on 50 swings for a .360 hitting percentage as those 24 kills tied the second-most kills in program history both in a match of any length and in a five-set match with the last time a member of the Pride had 24 or more kills being Kasey Davis doing so in 2019 against Culver-Stockton College.

Beyond Watters, the Pride also got 12 kills from Rachel Haubert, nine kills from Keely Coyler, five kills from Mattie Dafforn, and four kills from Kelsey NeCollins as three of those four hit for .222 or better.

NeCollins and Kaelyn Minich combined in the middle to finish as part of all of the 12 blocks Clarke finished with as NeCollins had three solo blocks and three block assists while Minich had two solo blocks and four block assists.

The back row defense for CU also was plenty busy as Ariana Rodriguez donned the libero jersey on Friday to lead the Pride with a career-high 19 digs while Haubert was able to finish with 17 digs for her fifth double-double of the season and her fourth match with 17 or more digs on the year. Almost every other member of the Pride that touched the floor on Friday finished with a dig with Watters and Olivia LaCour both adding eight digs, setters Mia Jaeger, Kortney Harms, and Jenna Lewis adding six, five, and four respectively, then NeCollins also producing five digs from the middle.

Jaeger and Harms saw a bulk of the action at setter with Jaeger producing 22 assists, her third most in a match in her two seasons at CU, while Harms added 19 and Lewis had four assists while seeing some action in the third set.

Clarke women's volleyball will close out their road trip with a 2:00 p.m. CT match against Peru State College in Peru, Neb. on Saturday afternoon.