October 18, 2008 - The weekend trip to Indianapolis turned out to be a most successful one for the Hillsdale College volleyball team.

The Chargers put together perhaps their best all-around weekend of the season in finishing with a 3-0 record, all regionals wins coming against opponents from the GLVC.

Saturday, Hillsdale defeated the University of Missouri-St. Louis 3-2 in a thrilling match. Later Saturday, Hillsdale put away Drury University 3-1 to finish off the perfect weekend. The Chargers, now 16-8 overallm return to GLIAC play next weekend with road matches vs. Ashland and Tiffin.

Hillsdale 3, Missouri-St. Louis 2
Playing its second straight excellent match in two days, the Hillsdale College volleyball team defeated a first-place team in the GLVC, beating the University of MIssouri-St. Louis, 3-2 in a thrilling match at Indianapolis' Team Indiana facility. The Chargers are now 15-8 on the season and will wrap up play at the crossover tournament with a match vs. Drury.

Three players had double-digit kills in the five-set match for the Chargers. UMSL is in first place in the GLVC West Division, and Hillsdale's win helped continue the GLIAC domination of this first-ever crossover tournament between these neighboring conferences.

The Chargers lost the first set 25-20, but came back to win sets two and three by identical 25-19 scores. UMSL won the fourth set 25-20, and Hillsdale prevailed in a tightly played fifth set, 15-13.

Hillsdale took a 2-0 lead in the fifth set, but never led by more than two points in any portion of that set. The Chargers took a timeout when the score was 12-12, and they went on to score three of the match's final four points.

Freshman Ashlee Crowder figured prominently in that match-ending sequence. She had two kills and a block assist among the Chargers' final three points, to clinch the match.

Crowder finished with 16 kills and hit .324 with three block assists for the Chargers. Junior Kitt Smith matched Crowder's kill total with 16, and had four digs. Junior Emily Bennett tied her career-high with 12 kills, including a .391 attack percentage.

Senior setter Stephanie Booms played a superb match with 43 assists, five kills and five digs, and no attack errors. Freshman Clara Leutheuser had nine kills and six block assists, while sophomore Sydney Dow led the team with 24 digs.

Hillsdale was able to overcome 10 serve reception errors and nine service errors in the match. The team hit .750 in the second set, and .307 for the match overall. Hillsdale's defense held UMSL to less than a .300 attack percentage in all five sets of the match.

Click on the link below for the box score from the match.

Box score


Hillsdale 3, Drury 1
In playing their final match of the weekend, the Chargers had little trouble defeating the Drury University Panthers, 3-1 at Team Indiana. Hillsdale won the first two sets by scores of 25-18 and 25-15. Drury came back to edge Hillsdale 28-26 in the third set, but the Chargers finished off the win with a 25-22 victory in the fourth set.

Drury's Megan Warhol had a match-high 21 kills, but it was offensive balance for the Chargers that enabled them to cruise to the victory. Six players had six or more kills in the match for Hillsdale.

The Chargers hit .364 as a team in each of the first two sets. The Panthers hit .000 in the second set (nine kills and nine errors).

Getting her first extensive playing time of the weekend, sophomore Amanda Bigney took advantage of her opportunity vs, Drury, registering 12 kills and three block assists, in addition to a .320 attack percentage.

JUnior Kitt Smith led the team in kills with 13, while freshman Ashlee Crowder had 12 kills. Both Crowder and Smith had at least 12 kills apiece in all three matches at the crossover tournament this weekend.

Senior setter Stephanie Booms made history in this match as well. With her 49 assists, she became Hillsdale's all-time leader in career assists. She now has 4,418 assists for her career, breaking the record held by Stephanie McKeachie. In 2007, Booms set the single-season assists record with 1,537. She has been named First-Team All-GLIAC twice, and has been the team's primary starting setter in all four years of her incredible career.

To view the statistics from the Drury match, click on the link below.

Box score