Boxscore
The 16-4 University of Evansville volleyball team suffered its third Missouri Valley Conference loss tonight at the hands of Missouri State. The Bears managed to pull out a 3-0 win over the Aces, with final set scores of 25-20, 25-15 and 25-19.
“It was a very disappointing performance on our part,” said head coach Mike Swan. “Our serve reception was sporadic and our hitting was just not where it needed to be. It was definitely not what we were hoping for or expecting out of tonight.”
The Bears held the Aces to a .125 attack percentage on the night. As a team, the Aces put up 41 digs and five blocks in the loss.
Junior Brooke Maher cranked out her fifth-consecutive double-double performance, tallying 11 kills and 11 digs in the three-set game. Junior Kaisi Nixon led her teammates by a considerable margin, hitting .500 at the net and totaling 10 kills. Junior Ellen Sawin added 28 assists on the night, putting her just 24 assists away from moving into sixth place for UE career assists.
Set one started off neck-and-neck as the two teams found themselves tied at 8-all to start the match. But Missouri State put up back-to-back kills as they began to pull away from the Aces. The lead would prove to be all MSU needed, and the Bears took the first game with a score of 25-20.
The Bears jumped out to an early 5-2 lead to start the second game. The Aces battled to keep the game within four points, but the Bears took advantage of back-to-back UE errors to take the 16-10 lead. As a team, UE was held to just a .027 attack percentage as the Bears ran away with game two, final score 25-15.
Looking to turn things around, UE started the third set with a 2-0 lead. The Bears didn’t stay down for long, though, and tied it back up at 4-all before taking a six-point lead at 13-7. The Aces cut the Bears’ lead to just two at 20-18, but were unable to regain the offensive advantage. Missouri State ended the match with a final score of 25-19.
“Obviously, this isn’t the result that we wanted,” added Swan. “Hopefully we will be able to regroup tomorrow and come away with a win on the weekend.”
With the loss, Evansville now moves to 5-3 in MVC play. The Aces will return to action tomorrow as they travel to Wichita State. The match is scheduled to start at 5:00 p.m. Live stats can be found by clicking here.
