Volleyball Team Serves Their Way to Victory

The Spalding University Golden Eagle Volleyball team has really hit their stride as they came into last night’s game with a record of 7-1 with their only loss coming at the hands of their cross town rivals, IUSE. However, last night they rode their momentum of the conference opener sweep this past weekend into their game against the Transylvania Pioneers. The Golden Eagles had a game plan on how they wanted to attack their opponent and that helped them cruise through the first two sets winning by scores of 25-18 and 25-19. “Our game plan was to keep our offense fast so we could hit before the blockers were ready,” says head coach Bridget Yates“. We were very fortunate that it paid off last night.

The team stumbled in the 3rd set losing it by a score of 16-25. Uncharacteristically, the team struggled at handling the opponent’s serves, something that has been their strong point. Coach Yates noticed this and immediately corrected it for game 4. “Our only trip up was in the third game when our serve receive faltered and caused us to have to slow down our offense.  Once the pace slowed, Transy's blockers and defense were able to prevent us from being effective on offense.”

They rallied in the 4th and captured the match with a decisive 25-17 victory. Paige Dellis led the Golden Eagles in kills with 13 while Allison Woosley dished out 29 assists. The real stat of the night is that the team recorded 15 aces in 4 matches. This not only kept the pressure on Transylvania but also allowed Spalding to take early leads and play ahead all day. “Our serving was especially effective and it was the main reason we won last night, “commented Coach Yates.

The Golden Eagles move to 8-1 while the Pioneers drop to 4-6. Next up for Spalding is the Centre College Invitational which will be played this weekend.