HANCOCK, Mich. - The Regents volleyball team began its two-day trip to Upper Michigan on Friday with matches against UW-Superior and Northland College. Rockford opened with a tough 3-0 loss against a very good UW-Superior team before earning a 3-1 win over Northland.
The Regents struggled in the opening two sets against the Yellowjackets before nearly winning the third. The two schools traded points for the entire set with the Regents last lead coming at 18-17. After UW-Superior retook the lead, Rockford answered with two straight points to again tie it up at 22-22. However, the Yellowjackets tallied three of the final four points to escape with a 25-23 win.
Katie Fowler (Stillman Valley, Ill.), Kayla Van Buren (Franklin Grove, Ill.) and Marissa Plock (German Valley, Ill.) each had four kills. Taylor Rossi (Ingleside, Ill.) led the Regents with 14 assists and 8 digs.
Rockford second match of the day turned out much better for the Regents as their 3-1 victory evened their overall record to 3-3. After dropping the opening set of the match, Rockford was able to battle back to win each of the next three sets. Following an early 8-2 and 11-6 lead in the second set, the Regents hit a bit of a rough stretch as Northland went on a 10-2 run and grab a 16-13 advantage. The LumberJills maintained that lead and had even had a pair of set points before Rockford scored the final four points for a hard fought 26-24 win. The third set followed a similar pattern as the Regents found themselves down 17-10. However, the ladies continued to fight and used a 5-0 run to chip away at the LumberJill lead. Rockford was final able to tie the set at 23-23 and then once again scored the final two points and take a 2-1 lead. The fourth and final set was much closer as Rockford and Northland went back-and-forth taking turns holding the lead. The Regents began to pull away when the ladies used a late 4-0 run to seize control of the set and eventually win the match.
Senior Kayla Van Buren led Rockford with 15 kills. Van Buren has now tallied double-digit kills in four of her last five matches. She is currently third in the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference with a .338 kill percentage, fifth with 3.29 kills per set and seventh with 69 kills.
Freshman Alex Storey (Dexter, Mich.) and junior Taylor Rossi each tallied a double-double. Storey recorded 10 kills and 12 digs while Rossi had a match-high 33 assists and 11 digs.
Katie Fowler, Madison Lanquist (Rockford, Ill.), and Krista Beach (Ashton, Ill.) finished with 23, 18 and 11 digs respectively.
The women's volleyball team returns to the court on Saturday, September 12 for its final two matches at the Finlandia Tournament. Rockford will begin at 9 a.m. against MSOE before concluding the day at noon against Finlandia.
