Pride turn the tides to salvage 1-1 start on 2024 opening day

DUBUQUE, Iowa - In their first taste of regular season match action of the 2024 season, the Clarke University women's volleyball team was able to split their day with a five-set in in their finale against Briar Cliff University after a 3-1 loss to open their season against Mount Marty College.

After picking up the opening set win against Mount Marty, the Pride would end up dropping five-straight sets against the Lancers then into the first two sets against Briar Cliff before pulling the reverse sweep against the Chargers with third, fourth, and fifth set wins by scores of 25-22, 25-16, and 15-12.

CU's turnaround in play during their second match coincidentally took place around the time freshman setter Jenna Lewis was inserted into the lineup as the Dubuque Senior High School product finished the match with a team-high 23 assists while adding seven digs and an ace. 

Lewis, along with sophomore Kortney Harms, who finished with 18 assists of her own, spread the ball around to six different attacking players who finished with six or more kills led by Rachel Haubert's 14 kills on 39 swings with only three errors for a .282 hitting percentage.

Clarke finished with 11 more digs than Briar Cliff as the Pride were led on the back row by a near record-setting effort from senior libero Rylie Bohanan as she finished with 37 digs, the second most digs in a five-set match in program history. On the day as a whole, Bohanan finished with 56 digs over the nine sets to move her career total to 893 on her quest towards becoming the ninth player in program history to record 1,000 digs in a career.

Bohanan wasn't alone as five other Clarke players had six or more digs with Ariana Rodriguez adding double digits of her own with 14 digs, Harms nearly had a double-double with nine digs, Jayden Knox had eight digs, Lewis finished wit her seven, and Keely Colyer had six digs.

The rest of the CU attacking unit against the Chargers saw Mattie Dafforn finish with 11 kills and a .241 hitting percentage, Brittney Mundell going 10-for-23 with only two errors for a team-high .348 hitting percentage and a team-high three block assists, while Colyer added nine kills, Kaelyn Minich had eight kills, and Amelia Driver finished with six kills.

Both Dafforn and Haubert tied the team-high in kills during the opener against Mount Marty as Dafforn was the more efficient player with only three errros on 25 swings for a .280 hitting percentage as Haubert had her first double-double of the season with 12 digs along with her 10 kills.

Harms had a near triple-double in the opener with a team-high 20 assists while adding nine digs and seven kills while Bohanan and Rodriguez combined for 28 digs over the four sets.

Clarke women's volleyball will wrap up their two-day, four-match tournament with matchups against UHSP and Calumet College of St. Joseph with start times of 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. CT respectively.