The Simpson women’s volleyball opened up play on their home court on Wednesday, Oct. 24. The Storm, 6-12 on the season, took on the 5-16 Buena Vista Beavers. Both teams held a record of 0-4 in American Rivers Conference play, heading into the matchup. Several multi-point runs was the name of the game for the Storm on Wednesday evening. Carrying momentum from set-to-set allowed the storm to come out victorious in the end.
The Storm came out hot, commanding a 9-5 lead in the first set of the match, after a service ace and four kills. Buena Vista fought back bringing the score within a point, but the storm pulled away with three consecutive kills, two from sophomore outside hitter, Emily Williams, and one from junior middle hitter, Peyton Mitchell. Set one resulted in a final score of 25-19.
Williams put on a dominating performance all evening. Her season-high 19 kills helped keep the Beavers from taking set one.
Motivated to keep the drive alive, the second set started out with a bang as sophomore outside hitter Jada Schmidt served eight straight points, including three aces, to put the Storm up 8-2. The Storm scored 22 points in the second set before the Beavers hit double digits. The final score for set two was 25-14.
The final set started a bit rocky for the Storm. The Beavers took an early lead after a few Storm errors, but the Storm pounded out 11 straight points to regain the lead 15-9. The Beavers tightened up the score once again, but kills from Williams, and senior right-side hitter Courtney Paxton sealed the deal for the Storm. The Storm tallied 17 total kills in the final set of the evening.
Junior setter Morgan DenBeste also contributed a season-high performance along with Williams, recording 33 assists and nine digs. In addition to Williams’ 19 kills, she also added five digs. Other key contributors of the evening included freshman libero Ella Meyer with 22 digs and four assists, Schmidt recorded seven kills and four aces,Paxton added five kills and three blocks on the night cap.
Rounding out the week, the Storm headed to Bloomington, IL. for the Illinois Wesleyan Tournament on Oct. 25 and 26. On Friday evening, the Storm took on Millikin and were defeated 3-1. Leading the way for the Storm was Williams with 12 kills. A non-conference doubleheader followed on Saturday as they faced Illinois Wesleyan and Albion. Despite falling to both Illinois Wesleyan and Albion, Schmidt came up big with ten and 17 kills respectively on Saturday. Sophomore defensive specialist, Audrey Behrens added 13 digs against Illinois Wesleyan and freshman setter, Lauren Dockendorffset career-highs with 22 assists and five aces.
The Storm moved to 7-15 on the season, and 1-4 in conference play. Conference play continues for the storm on Friday, Nov. 1 and Saturday, Nov. 2 as the Storm face the Coe College Kohawks and Wartburg Knights. They will finish off regular season conference play at home against Luther on Wednesday, Nov. 6.
