CINCINNATI, Ohio - The Wilmington College volleyball team opened its 2022 campaign with a pair of four-set losses to rival Earlham College and Wittenberg University on day one of the Charlie Wrublewski Invitational hosted by Mount St. Joseph University on Friday.
In the match with Earlham, Wilmington used four service aces to keep the Hustlin' Quakers out of system in set one. That combined with seven kills between the Fightin' Quaker duo of Kerian Yarkosky and Sydney Geibel gave WC the set one victory 25-18.
In set two, Geibel and Sofia Thomas combined to block a Maria Young attack attempt, but a side-out followed by two lengthy Earlham service runs put EC ahead 17-12. Two kills from Sarah Pohlman fueled a Wilmington comeback that put WC down a point at 21-20, but Earlham closed out the set with consecutive service aces and an attack error from Joy Bebe.
Sets three and four followed a similar script as neither team could pull away in the first half of the set. Both were tied 13-13 at one point, but Earlham pulled ahead by 4-5 points shortly after and hold on for a four-set win.
Earlham hit a .231 clip for the match compared to a .176 mark for Wilmington. Maria Young and Olivia Kyrk led the way for EC offensively, both hitting over .330 and accumulating a combined 30 kills. Erin Wagner dished out 39 assists and added 17 digs while Jennifer Shamel had 19 digs.
For Wilmington, Thomas hit a .257 clip with 11 kills while setter Andie Dolven dished out 22 assists. Blake O'Brien added a team-best 22 digs from the back row while Sarah Brown and Bebe both had two blocks.
In the match with Ohio Wesleyan, the Quakers hit under .100 in the three sets they lost. In the set two, the one WC emerged victorious, neither team led by more than two points until a Battling Bishop attack error gave Wilmington a 16-13 lead. After an OWU side out, consecutive kills from Geibel and Thomas put WC up 18-14, and the Quakers would relinquish the lead the rest of the set.
Unfortunately, OWU hit a blistering .682 in set three and though it cooled down to a .286 clip in set four, Wilmington had just seven kills to go along with six errors in the set.
The Bishop duo of Melissa Murray and Kaitlyn Powers combined for 28 kills while Lily Bechina assisted 33 of OWU's 53 kills. Thomas again led WC offensively with 10 put-aways while Geibel had seven. O'Brien had 23 digs.
Wilmington (0-2) will face Wittenberg University and host Mount St. Joseph tomorrow (Saturday) at noon and 2 p.m. respectively.
