BLOOMINGTON, Ill. - Women's Volleyball faced Illinois Wesleyan University Thursday night at the Shirk Center in the CCIW Women's Volleyball Tournament Semifinals in Bloomington. The Big Blue would defeat the Titans in five sets to advance to the Finals against Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin on Saturday.
Illinois Wesleyan would start the match getting on the board first in the first set, going up 2-0 before
Marissa McElroy recorded her first kill of the night on a
Rose Syversen assist. The Big Blue would go on four multi-point scoring runs, scoring four points twice in the set. The first set would be tied a total of seven times before the Titans pulled away in the last three plays to win 25-22.
The second set saw Millikin tie the match, winning 25-19. Five times the Big Blue would score more than one point, going on a five point run to tie the set at 13-13. Millikin would end the set on a kill from
Lauren Brummel that was assisted by
Rose Syversen to go into the third set tied 1-1.
The Titans would go ahead again in the match, winning the third set by the largest score differential of the night, beating the Big Blue 25-18. Down 5-3 early in the set, Illinois Wesleyan would gain the lead after scoring six straight to go up by four points on Millikin, bringing the score to 9-5 in favor of the Titans. Millikin would not tied the game or have the lead again in the set and would go into the fourth set down 2-1.
With the match on the line in the fourth set, Millikin would force a fifth set after defeating the Titans again with a final score of 25-19. The Big Blue would find themselves down by four in the middle of the set, but a five point scoring run would see the set tied at 13-13. After giving up a point a play later, Millikin would score three points to go ahead 16-14 and would stay ahead the rest of the set to force a fifth set to decide a winner.
As was the story the entire match, the fifth set saw more back and forth scoring from Millikin and Illinois Wesleyan.
Rose Syversen would put the Big Blue ahead first, scoring on the first play of the set, but the Titans would tie the game back up the next play. In total, the game would be tied five times before Millikin pulled away late in the set, scoring three straight before giving up a point, bringing the score to 12-10. The Big Blue would go on a three point scoring run at the end of the game, ending the match on an ace served by
Skylar Harris.
Senior setter
Rose Syversen lead the match with 51 assists, tying the second best single game performance of her career. Leading the Big Blue on the offensive attack was sophomore
Lauren Brummel, who lead the match with 21 kills, followed by
Marissa McElroy who posted 17 kills of her own and
Tori Stuart who had 16 kills on the night. On defense,
Julianna Vassallo lead the match in digs with 25, while
Rose Syversen and
Alyssa Vignos both had 17. Impressive serving efforts by Millikin helped solidify the win with
Rose Syversen and
Skylar Harris recording three aces, while
Julianna Vassallo had two of her own.
The Big Blue will face the Carthage College Lady Reds in the CCIW Women's Volleyball Tournament Finals on Saturday, November 9 in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The match will be held at Tarble Arena at 5:00 PM. The Lady Reds enter the match ranked fourth in the AVCA Top 25 Poll in which Millikin received three votes. Millikin enters the Finals ranked eighth in the NCAA Division III Regional Rankings.
