MILWAUKEE, Wis. - The RU women's volleyball team opened the NACC portion of its season on Wednesday evening with a road match against the Alverno College Inferno. Although the Regents were unable to win a set, falling 3-0, Rockford continued to battle and play hard the entire way.
The match got off to a bit of a difficult start as the Inferno never trailed in the opening set. After the Regents and Inferno split the first two points, Alverno went on a 8-0 run to take a 9-1 advantage. Rockford was never really able to dig themselves out of the early hole and dropped the first set 25-17.
The second set was much closer as the Regents were within four points nearly the entire way. Rockford opened the set strong taking a 2-1 lead off a Libby Malenchik (Rockford, Ill.) kill and a Jessica Diaz (Bolingbrook, Ill.) ace. However, the RU lead did not last long as the Inferno scored five of the next seven points to retake the lead. From that moment on, the two teams traded points nearly the entire rest of the way until Alverno pulled away late, winning the second set 25-19.
The final set of the match was very similar to the previous one with Rockford taking an early lead before Alverno slowly took control. The Regents again jumped out to a quick 2-0 advantage thanks in part to the great serving of Jessica Diaz. Unfortunately the Inferno answered right back with 5-1 run of its own to grab a 5-3 lead. Although the Regents fought hard down the stretch, the Inferno proved to be too much winning the set 25-18 and the match 3-0.
Two of Rockford's top performers in the match were freshman Jennifer Quintas (Rockford, Ill.) and junior transfer Maddison Hiland (Bellevue, Iowa). Quintas had another excellent day defensively recording a match high 15 digs. Hiland was very efficient on the offensive side of the ball recording 4 kills on 10 attack attempts for a .300 hitting percentage.
The RU volleyball team returns to the court on Friday, September 15 for a pair of matches at the Knox College Tournament. The Regents are set to play Monmouth College at 6 PM and MacMurray College at 8 PM.
