ROCKFORD, Ill. - The Rockford University women's volleyball team (1-4) secured its first win of the season in an exhilarating match against Beloit College (2-3). The Regents came out hot, winning the first two sets (25-23, 25-21) led by Della Crain but then dropped the third set (25-20), before ultimately taking down the Buccaneers in the fourth set (25-21).
Beloit College
- Rockford and Beloit seemed evenly matched early on in the first set, tied at 5-5. The score stayed within two points, until the Bucs made a push late in the set with Amanda Baran's kill to go up by four at 18-14.
- The Regents closed the gap scoring three consecutive points making it 18-17, one of those points coming on a kill from McCathran Andrew.
- The two schools then went back-and-forth trading points until the first set was tied at 23-23.
- Rockford's Della Crain and Paige Carpenter hammered down kills scoring the last two points to earn the victory in the opening set 25-23.
- The second set got off to an excellent start for the Regents, as Rockford scored the first four points, including a service ace from Paige Carpenter.
- However, Beloit climbed right back into the match, answering with three straight points of their own making the score 4-3.
- The Bucs then used a 5-0 run in the middle of the set to take a 17-11 lead, as they slowly started to pull away from the Regents.
- With Rockford still trailing 20-15 late in the set, the Regents put together a 7-0 run to retake the lead at 22-20. Della Crain dominated with five kills during that span, forcing Beloit to take two timeouts.
- Della Crain's back-to-back service aces propelled the Regents over the Bucs in the second set with the final score of 25-21.
- A kill by Paige Carpenter got the Regents off to a 1-0 start in the third set.
- However, the Regents struggled to hold onto a lead as they found themselves down 12-7.
- The Regents made a good effort scoring four points to take the lead 17-16, but was not enough, as Rockford dropped the third set, 25-20.
- Rockford got off to a slow start in the third set, finding themselves down 7-3.
- Fortunately, Rockford was able to claw its way back into the set and tie it at 12-12.
- The Regents broke the set wide open late in the match, as they went on an 11-2 run with a flurry of kills coming from Nicole Eggers, Casey Sheetz, Della Crain, and Jacey Wilson to take a 24-19 lead.
- Della Crain then finished the Bucs off with her 22nd kill of the match to win the set 25-21 and the match 3-1.
The RU women's volleyball team returns to action with two matches in Denver, Colorado on Friday, September 6. The Regents open with JWU at 12:00 PM, followed by William Peace at 6:00 PM.
