Volleyball's Streak Ends at Tough Tri-Match

URBANA, Ohio (October 6, 2012) – The Urbana University volleyball team saw a three-match winning streak halted on Saturday afternoon at a home tri-match.  The Blue Knights dropped a pair of tight matches against Fairmont State University and the reigning Division III National Champs from Wittenberg University.

After falling in straight sets to Fairmont State in the first match of the season, Urbana showed tremendous improvement in the morning match on Saturday.  The Blue Knights took the Falcons to four sets before falling 25-20, 24-26, 25-16, 25-22.  In the season opener, Urbana never scored more than 14 points in the 3-set sweep.

Super sophomore Kelsey Volkmer once again led the Blue Knights’ charge.  Volkmer racked up 23 kills on 55 attempts.  She hit .345 in the 4-set loss.  As a team, Urbana swatted a strong .301 compared to FSU’s .287.  Katlin Kremer also had a big game for the Blue Knights up front.  Kremer recorded 13 kills and hit .324.  Setter Mary Hendricks had 42 assists and Kayli Lucius led the defense with 12 digs. 

After watching #3 Wittenberg fall to Fairmont State in the middle match, Urbana jumped on the Tigers early in the final match of the day.  The Blue Knights won the first and third sets 25-19 and 25-14, but the Tigers won the second and fourth sets 25-15 and 25-19 to send the match into a fifth-set tiebreaker.  There, the third-ranked Tigers rallied late for a 15-13 victory.

Volkmer had a team-high 18 kills and 15 digs in the heartbreaking loss.  Hendricks handed out 39 assists.  Kaci Eurez tallied a team-high 4 aces to go with 10 digs, and Lucius once again led the defense with 17 digs.

The Blue Knights (4-15, 2-1 G-MAC) return to conference play on Tuesday night.  Urbana travels to G-MAC foe Central State University for the first of two matchups with the Marauders.  Game time is set for 7:00 p.m. [Box Score vs. FSU][Box Score vs. Wittenberg]