Dutch drop St. Catherine in five-set volleyball thriller
ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA — Trailing 2-1 against the host school Saturday, the Central College volleyball team rallied to win in five sets 25-19, 19-25, 18-25, 25-20, 15-13 against St. Catherine University (Minn.).
Central (3-2) was swept 25-16, 25-23, 25-19 against the University of Wisconsin – Stout in its second match.
A dominant effort at the net saw Central register 12 total blocks, including six blocks assists each from Gracie Pierson (sophomore, outside hitter Lake City, Minn.) and Elyse Johnson (junior, middle hitter, Kirksville, Mo.)
Gracie Daniels (junior, outside hitter, Broken Arrow, Okla.) had a team-high 10 kills and Pierson added nine against the Wildcats Adisyn Illg (senior, Johnsburg, Ill.) and Pierson each had three service aces as the team had nine total. Illg had 20 set assists and Amanda Smith (senior, setter, Tipton) had 13.
“We battled well against a strong St. Catherine team,” Czipri said. “We worked through some adjustments extremely well. Our depth and versatility served us well and we utilized that to our advantage.”
Against Stout, Central had a team hitting percentage of .047 and 10 reception errors.
“We struggled with parts of our game against Stout and never truly got any momentum going,” Czipri said.
The Dutch are at Grinnell College for a 7 p.m. match Tuesday.
“I think we saw a lot of good things this weekend to build off of,” Czipri said.
