Sept. 19, 2009 - The Hillsdale College volleyball team finished a clean sweep of its South Division foes Saturday afternoon in a 3-0 victory over Northwood University at Jesse Philips Arena.

The Chargers, having played their division rivals once each, sit in first place in the South with a 5-0 GLIAC record and a 12-1 mark overall. This marks Hillsdale's second-best 13-game start to any season in its history, trailing only the 2006 team that went 13-0 en route to a 29-2 overall record. Northwood falls to 3-10 on the season with the loss.

Hillsdale has five remaining matches against the South Division the rest of this season, two of those coming at home.

In this match, Hillsdale was facing a team it did not defeat in 2008, just like the night before when the opponent was Wayne State. And just like Friday night, the Chargers executed well when it counted, recording its eighth 3-0 sweep in 12 overall victories this season.

Northwood played tencious volleyball in the first two sets, holding the lead for much of the first set, and rarely letting the Chargers get a long scoring run going in the second set. Each set ended with Hillsdale on top, 25-21.

Hillsdale strangled the match away for good in the third set, jumping out to a 17-6 lead thanks to intelligent and aggressive serving, and its ability to block Northwood's attacks, forcing the Timberwolves to expend more energy to get the ball on Hillsdale's side of the net.

In addition, the Chargers played one of their most offensively efficient matches of the season, committing just nine hitting errors in the entire match. Adding in the 41 kills generated, Hillsdale hit .302 for the match, one of its best marks of the season.

Operating at peak efficiency was sophomore outside hitter Ashlee Crowder, who was awesome in all three of Hillsdale's home matches this week.

She led all players with 17 kills, while only committing two errors for a .341 attack percentage in the match. She was also very active defensively, making great efforts to keep balls off the floor and helping the Chargers to counter-attack the Timberwolves often. She had 10 kills in the match, and delivered three service aces.

The offense was spread around the rest of the roster nicely by setter Apryl Schmucker, who had 29 assists, six kills and seven digs. Four players had between four and seven kills for the Chargers, which included seven kills by sophomore Clara Leutheuser, and four apiece from junior Amanda Bigney and freshman Lauren Grover.

Grover, who got the start in the second set, was strong at the net with a team-high three block assists.

Junior Sydney Dow has been an important part of Hillsdale's 12-1 start. She brings outstanding court coverage and accurate passing to the team as its libero, and had to deliver some nice digs off very strong attacks by Northwood in the team's latest victory. She finished with 12 digs for the match, which did not do justice to the high quality and high value of her contribution to the win.

The Chargers will head to the Upper Peninsula next weekend for the first time in four years, taking on Northern Michigan and Michigan Tech on the road.

Click on the link below for the stats from Saturday's match.


Chargers 3, Northwood 0