Statesmen Knocked Out of Heart Tourney in Quarterfinals
The William Penn women’s volleyball team was unable to pull off the upset as it closed its year with a 3-0 loss to #2 seed Central Methodist in the Heart of America Athletic Conference Championship Quarterfinals Saturday.
Seventh-seeded WPU (16-17), which fell by scores of 23-25, 12-25, 19-25, was outhit .264.-086.
The navy and gold permitted the Eagles (21-9) to score the first two points of the matchup before rallying with six of the next seven points.
WPU continued to stay ahead, including having three-point leads on three separate occasions, but CMU finally caught the visitors at 22-22. The Statesmen unfortunately failed to provide a response as they fell 1-0 in the bout.
William Penn never got anything going in the second set as the momentum completely shifted to Central Methodist. The visitors tried to flip the script, but managed just one tie in the third round. WPU closed to within two at 19-17, but was unable to get over the hump as its season came to a close.
Alyvia Johnson (Jr., Owatonna, Minn., Business Management) was WPU’s top attacker with 10 kills, while Andressa Borges (Jr., Sao Paulo, Brazil, Sports Management) posted seven kills on a team-high .286 attack rate.
Alyssa Young (Sr., Winter Springs, Fla., Exercise Science) added six kills, but was even more of a force at the service line as she tallied all five of her squad’s aces.
Mia Brady (So., Pontiac, Ill., Exercise Science) notched a double-double of 16 assists and 10 digs, while Chyanne Bradford (So., Rowlett, Texas, Secondary Education) tacked on 10 more helpers.
The Statesmen defense was guided by Kaya Caprini (So., Minneapolis, Minn., Psychology) with 13 digs and Keegan Buller (Jr., Rowlett, Texas, Psychology) with two block assists. William Penn unfortunately was outblocked 8-3 in the match.
“This was not the season we were expecting to have, especially after such a successful previous year,” Head Coach Lauren Eldridge said. “We looked really good on paper, but just were not able to win the big ones when needed to. We competed in the majority of our matches and took some sets from ranked opponents, which was the plan for the tough schedule we had this year. We are looking forward to resetting and bouncing back for next year as we have a really solid group returning which will make for a competitive spring. I am so grateful and appreciative of our three seniors who helped shape this program to get it to where it is today.”
