Pride drop three set home match to Mount Mercy

DUBUQUE, Iowa - Repeating their routine from last week, the Clarke University women's volleyball team opened their week with a home conference match as they would droped a 3-0 match to Mount Mercy University in the Kehl Center on Tuesday night.

Each of the first two sets came down to the minimum as the Mustangs would edge out a 26-24 first set before coming back from an early deficit to win the second set 25-23 then pulling away in the third to close out a 25-20 final set to close out the match.

In the first set, Clarke was able to turn a 11-5 deficit to a 12-11 lead behind three Rachel Haubert kills, two Kortney Harms aces, and a block from Haubert and Kelsey NeCollins but MMU would pull back ahead 18-14 and 23-19 before facing double set point at 24-21.

Two Maya Watters kills and a Rylie Bohanan aces would tie the set at 24-24 but Mount Mercy's Mary Kate Bendlage made it 25-24 with a kill before Hallie Bedier and Sam Schrage blocked Watters to win the set and go up 1-0.

In the second, it would be the Pride jumping out early this time as they opened up 8-1 then pulling it out to 12-3 but the Mustangs would chip awayu slowly to get to 17-12 before an 8-2 run would tie the set at 18-18 and a three-point run while trailing 21-20 would give MMU a two-point lead that came in handy as they traded points with CU to close out the final four serves of the set for the 25-23 win.

Mount Mercy took control early in the third set, starting with the first six points and despite pulling the set to three points at 11-8, that early deficit was too difficult to overcome as the next moment the set would be as close was at 18-15 before Mount Mercy got it to 23-15 and eventually staved off a four-point run to go from 24-16 to 24-20 and close out the match for a 3-0 win.

Bendlage was dominant on the attack for the Mustangs, leading all players with 22 kills on 46 attacks with only five errors for a .370 hitting percnetage while Schrage and Jenna Brown were the next closest attackers for MMU with nine each.

The back row defense for Mount Mercy played with a full team effort led by libero Rylie Mussman as she finished with 17 digs, leading a group of three other Mustangs with double digit digs as Brooke Ellyson had 13, Hailey Hested had 12, and Bedier had 10.

For the Pride, Watters continued to put up her numbers coming off of being named Heart Attacker of the Week on Monday, leading CU in kills with 15 while producing a .211 hitting percentage.

Bohanan covered a lot of ground on the back row for Clarke with 23 digs, her most in a three set match, while the middle blocking effort of NeCollins and freshman Kaelyn Minich combined for all seven of CU's blocks while each also finishing with four kills with Minich hitting for a .333 percentage and NeCollins hitting at .400.

Clarke women's volleyball will be on the road for a third-straight weekend in conference play as they'll first face off against Grand View University on Friday, Oct. 4 in Des Moines, Iowa for a 7:00 p.m. CT scheduled first serve.