Grace Spikers Rally To League Win
SPRING ARBOR, Mich. – The Grace College volleyball team wrapped up a memorable comeback victory in five sets at Spring Arbor on Friday night.
The Lady Lancers (16-13, 7-6 Crossroads League) won the second, fourth and fifth sets to secure the season sweep of the Cougars (5-18, 1-12 CL).
Grace had 64 kills and hit .174 for the match, compared to 48 kills for Spring Arbor on a .111 percentage.
Spring Arbor’s offense started sharply, notching 14 kills on three errors to take a 25-22 win the opening game. Grace responded with a dominant 25-13 win in the second set, finishing with 15 kills to even the match.
The Cougars pulled ahead again with a seven-point win in the third game, but the Lady Lancers battled back to even the match in the fourth. Grace used a 6-0 run and a 5-0 run to win 25-16 in the fourth. Tori Bontrager proved to be a key factor with a kill and a block in each run.
The fifth set proved to be the wildest. Grace held a slight advantage for most of the beginning stages and led 10-7. Spring Arbor rallied with a 6-1 spurt to go ahead 13-11. Grace then rattled off three points of its own to serve for the match at 14-13, but the Cougars survived and the match went on for 20 more nailbiting rallies.
Grace had seven match points that were not capitalized on, and Spring Arbor had three of its own that were wasted. Naarah Foster and Kaitlin Kerrigan each had a kill that kept Grace alive on a Cougar match point.
With the score knotted 23-23, Grace finally found the winning edge. Spring Arbor mishit a serve for Grace’s 24th point, and Savannah Hart produced the game-winning swing, finishing off an assist by Taylor Baird.
Kerrigan had a double-double of 14 kills and 17 digs, and Foster recorded 14 kills on a .306 percentage. Hart had a career-best match of seven kills on 14 attempts, adding two block assists.
Bontrager finished with 11 kills, 2 aces and 4 block assists, and Marta Bleed had seven kills and two block assists. Laken Chaney tallied 27 assists and 12 digs, and Baird added 25 assists and two aces.
The Lady Lancers are on the road again on Saturday, playing at St. Francis at 4 p.m.