Harms reaches 1,000 career assists, Pride fall to Wildcats in five
DUBUQUE, Iowa - Finishing a home weekend in conference play, the Clarke University women's volleyball team dropped a 3-2 match in the Kehl Center to Culver-Stockton College on Saturday afternoon.
In a match that started at 11:00 a.m. CT, the five-set marathon would carry all the way to past 1:00 p.m. with the Wildcats avoiding a four-set loss after winning the first 25-21, followed by a pair of 25-15 set wins in the second and third for CU when CSC would pull out a 25-23 set win in the fourth behind a 5-0 run to go from down 21-18 to up 23-21 before trading points to that 25-23 win.
Before the Wildcat run, the Pride would go from down 17-12 to get to that 21-18 lead behind a 9-1 run that came behind the serve of Jayden Knox and Keely Colyer where three Culver-Stockton attack errors, three Emma Shea-Wopinek kills, along with a Colyer aces and a Kortney Harms kill produced those nine points.
Heading into the fifth set, Harms would reach a career statistical milestone as she'd reach 1,000 career assists with her first assist of the fifth set on a Colyer kill as the junior from Flanagan, Ill. would finish the match one dig shy of a triple-double with 10 kills, 19 assists, and nine digs to spot her career assist total at 1,003 at the conclusion of the match.
Culver-Stockton would pull out the fifth set win behind another run where they trailed 8-5 and a 5-0 that extended to a 6-1 run put the Wildcats up two points before Clarke answered with kills from Harms and Colyer to tie the set at 11-11 but a three-point run after a 12-12 tie would seal the win for the road team at 15-12.
Colyer would finish the match with a triple-double of her own, her second of the season, where she tied with Harms for the team-high of 10 kills, had 22 assists, and 11 digs as those 22 assists matched her previous season-high in her other triple-double match back on Aug. 29 against Mount Marty.
The outside hitter combination of Shea-Wopinek and Amelia Driver finished the match with seven and nine kills respectively, middle blockers Kelsey NeCollins and Kaelyn Minich combined for 11 kills on 31 swings and six total blocks, and back row specialists in libero Jayden Knox, Olivia LaCour, Jenna Lewis, and Ariana Rodriguez totaled 31 digs with Knox producing a team-high 15, LaCour adding six, and both Lewis and Rodriguez dug up five attacks in the match.
The top two kill totals for the Wildcats topped any member of the CU attack as Zoe Irvin led all players in the match with 14 kills on 32 attempts with only four errors for a .312 hitting percentage as she was supported by an 11-kill day from Victoria Pollard.
Clarke women's volleyball will spend their next four matches on the road, starting next Tuesday when they travel to Oskaloosa, Iowa for a 7:00 p.m. CT match against William Penn University on Sept. 23.