Sept. 17, 2022 – It was another tough day for the Loras College women's volleyball team as the Duhawks dropped a pair of well-contested matches inside the Lillis Athletic and Wellness Center on Saturday.
The Duhawks (3-8) went back-and-forth with the Webster University Gorlocks (3-2) to start day two of the Loras Invitational, but ultimately fell 3-2 in five sets. Loras rounded out the tournament with a 3-0 loss to No. 8 Gustavus Adolphus College (9-2) despite playing tight with the highly regarded Golden Gusties for much of the match.
In the first match, Loras and Webster played past 25 points in each of the first two sets. The Gorlocks managed to steal both of those victories, but the match was far from over.
Loras came back firing, winning the third set 25-13 and the fourth set 25-15. The Duhawks were far and away the better team in those two sets, highlighted by an early 9-1 run in the fourth set that featured three straight kills from freshman pin Sophie Younkin.
That momentum for Loras forced a fifth set, which again went down to the wire before a miscommunication led to a service ace for the Gorloks that clinched the final set at 15-13.
Senior pin James Keefe led the team with an impressive 21 kills in the match to lead a quartet of Duhawks who finished in double-figures. Junior setter Sara Hoskins totaled 50 assists in the match, marking the most for her in a match this season and the fifth time she's reached the half-century mark in her career.
Loras faced a talk task in its second match as No. 8 Gustavus Adolphus was the second ranked team the Duhawks would have to face in their home tournament (No. 21 University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point on Friday).
The Golden Gusties came into the match fresh off a sweep of the Cornell College Pioneers and didn't let up on their way to a 25-12 victory in set one.
Loras responded well and battled toe-to-toe with GAC for each of the next two sets, falling just 25-21 on both occasions. The Golden Gusties were as efficient as a team can be as they accounted for just three attacking errors in the match to tally a .452 attacking percentage.
The big charge for the Duhawks in the third came when freshman defender Kylee Garrett helped rattle off six straight points while on the serve. Her second of two aces during that stretch brought the Duhawks to within two points at 18-16 and prompted a GAC timeout. The two sides alternated each of the remaining points in the set until the Golden Gusties got away with the 3-0 sweep.
Loras returns to action this coming Wednesday, Sept. 21, when they continue American Rivers Conference play versus Coe College at 6 P.M. inside the AWC.
