On October 3, Women’s Volleyball took on the Elmhurst Bluejays at home and fell to them in the fifth set.
“We came into it knowing that it was going to be challenging, and knowing that we would have to compete and play well. We’re evenly matched up,” said Senior Emily Westermeyer.
With this loss, Augustana is now 1-2 in the CCIW and 9-10 overall.
The Vikings were up 9-4 in the fifth set, but Elmhurst came back with a six-point run to win the game.
Augustana won the first set 30-28. Trailing 28-27, the Vikings took advantage of an Elmhurst attacking error to go on a three-point run.
“We want to win the first set. That’s been our goal for a while, going into every game the goal is to win the first set so that we have the momentum going into the rest of the game. So, we kind of just kept our eye on the prize there,” said Westermeyer.
In the second set, Augie was trailing 8-5, but Elmhurst went on an eight-point run that gained them the lead. They would then end up winning the set with another long run.
“I feel like we weren’t really bettering the ball as much as we should. We just weren’t really connecting,” said Senior Claire Martin. “We weren’t playing as a team unit. We didn’t have a lot of team confidence. We were making silly errors, and I think all of those added together to make the big runs possible for them.”
Augie led in the third set 21-20, but Elmhurst went on a five-point run to score the final points and win the set.
“Volleyball is a lot about momentum and whoever has it usually keeps it until they make an error,” said Westermeyer. “So, they had a lot of the momentum and were hitting very smartly. They were controlling their side and just letting us make the errors.”
The Vikings led 19-12 in the fourth set. Elmhurst rallied to go up 25-24, but the Vikings fought to win the set 27-25. The setpoint for the Vikings came off of an Elmhurst attacking error.
“All of the games were close, and we knew even if we lost a set, we had a chance to win the next one,” said Martin.
In the fifth, the Bluejays would go on yet another run to win the set coming up from a 9-4 deficit against the Vikings.
“We started off strong, and then I think we thought we had it in the bag so we kind of lost focus. They went on another run, and then we let them catch up to us. After that we just lost confidence,” said Martin.
On October 5, Women’s Volleyball played and lost to UW-Whitewater at home, and lost to Illinois Wesleyan at home as well this past Saturday. Their next game will be October 10 at North Central College.