Volleyball splits homestand

Oct. 2 saw the PUC volleyball team face the Purdue North Central Panthers on their home court.  It ended up being, as described by the team, a disappointing game. 

The PNC Panthers won all three sets at 20-25, 20-25 and 11-25. This match left the PUC ladies with an overall season record of 3-10 and a conference record of 1-5.

This was especially disappointing to PUC’s team because they won against the Panthers 3-2 at their last match.

“This is the big game that we should have won … we were really upset that we lost to a team that we should have beat,” outside hitter LaTianna Harris said.

Outside hitter Maria Frebis described gameplay compared to the Panthers.

“I feel like [the Panthers] played a lot like they did last game and I feel like we played down, and that was playing down to a level that we shouldn’t be playing,” Frebis said.

The first set of the match PUC’s team trailed behind the Panthers in the beginning, with PUC’s coach Natalie Shadowen calling a time-out when the score hit 1-7. Soon after the time-out, PUC started working their way up to the Panthers, mostly with successful kills by outside hitters Harris and Frebis. But due to their struggle with returning the Panthers’ deep hits landing inches away from the back line and hitting the ball out of bounds, the PUC ladies did not catch up.

In the second set, PUC took a lead in the beginning, leaving the PNC behind with a score of 8-1. After a brief time out, called by Panthers coach Brian Erminger, they caught up.  The two teams kept within a few points of each other until PNC took the set 20-25 with a few executed kills and sending the ball between the PUC team’s second row and back line.

In the final set of the match, the Panthers increased their amount of successful kills and blocks, while PUC’s successful kills down-sized from 14 in the first set to three in the third.

“When we get in a slump, we don’t know how to come back out of it,” Harris said.  “We stop talking, we don’t believe in each other and we stop playing as a team and play as individuals and we get down on ourselves.”

PUC lost the third set, 11-25. This was a disappointing loss, but they still had hopes looking forward.

“I think we could have played better as a team. I think we have steps that we are still taking to move forward, but I think we are in the direction right now and trying to make the steps to get better and start getting back on the winning track,” Frebis said.

That outlook helped, as when the team took their home court next, against Moody Bible on Oct. 4, they won 3-2.  The PUC team was on top of things throughout, winning three sets in dominating fashion and keeping the score close in the other two.