WILMINGTON, Ohio – The Wilmington College volleyball team split a pair of matches on Saturday, falling to Marietta College 3-0 (25-23, 25-15, 25-15) in Ohio Athletic Conference (OAC) action and then sweeping Ohio University-Chillicothe 3-0 (25-17, 25-22, 25-21). Marietta swept OU-Chillicothe in the other match of the day.
The Fightin' Quakers were also blessed with the appearance of the father of Lauryn Griewahn, a freshman on last year's team who lost a battle with lupus last spring.
The Pioneers led 16-9 in set one only to see Wilmington score five consecutive points after a timeout using a service run from Grace Ewing. A Marietta timeout that followed saw the visitors push their lead to six (23-17). Kills from Ewing and Amber Rox got Wilmington within four points, but a service error gave the Pioneers five set points. Wilmington fought off four of them to 24-23, but Maddie Nader found Sam Ritenour on a slide for the kill and the first set.
Wilmington, which outhit Marietta .241 to .212 in the first set, never regained that kind of offensive firepower in the final two sets. The Pioneers won both in somewhat convincing fashion to earn the sweep and the conference win.
The Pioneers hit a .261 clip for the match with 36 kills and 12 errors on 92 attack attempts compared to 29 kills and 16 errors on 89 swings for the Quakers. Marietta held a slight 7-3 edge in service aces an 5-4 in team blocks.
Individually, Karrah Wind led everyone with 12 kills and a .321 attack percentage for Wilmington. Marietta countered with 10 kills from Hunter Barnes and nine from Amanda Arrowood. Nader led the setting department for the Pioneers with 33 assists while Jacie Koontz and Grace Ewing, the 6-2 attack for Wilmington, combined for 22 assists. April Davis had 16 digs to lead Marietta's back row while Koontz had 13 for Wilmington.
"Karrah Wind has one of her best career matches against Marietta," Head Coach Tim O'Brien said. As a team, we got a little too one dimenstional on offense."
In the victory against OU-Chillicothe, Wilmington hit over. 100 in all three sets while the Bobcats failed to do so in both of the first two sets. OU-Chillicothe put down 39 kills to Wilmington's 32, but committed 27 attack errors while the Quakers missed just 13 times.
Bailey Hall, who recorded her 1,000th career kill in the match, finished with 17 kills while Baylee Hartman had 11 for the Bobcats. Wilmington featured a balanced scoring attack as Wind, Mariella Szrom and Jillian Wesco finished with eight, seven and six kills respectively.
Ewing and Koontz combined for 21 assists while Madalyn Eskew had 31 for OU-Chillicothe. Karley Schlensker had 22 digs for the Quakers' back row while Koontz had 16 and Wesco 13. Taylor Overly gave the Bobcats' back row 20 digs.
Wilmington's biggest advantage in the second match came at the net as the Quakers tallied eight blocks as a team including two solo blocks from Meghan Koch and three block assists from Morgan Loomis.
"Our serve receive was much better in the second match," said O'Brien. "I thought both setters did a nice job of putting our attackers in good positions to score points."
The Quakers (6-17, 0-5 OAC) host league-leading Otterbein University on Tuesday, Oct. 16.
