Pride fall in three sets to No. 11 Missouri Baptist in road trip opener

ST. LOUIS, Mo. - Starting a weekend road trip against the top ranked team in the Heart of America Athletic Conference, the Clarke University women's volleyball team dropped a 3-0 match to No. 11 Missouri Baptist University on Friday night in St. Louis, Mo.

The Spartans were able to pull out a pair of double-digit set wins in the first and third with the closest set coming in the middle in the second, where the Pride would play their best set of the night, finishing with 11 kills on 21 attacks with only two errors but MBU would match that and then some with 16 kills on 22 attempts with two errors as the hitting percentage comparison was .636 to .429 in favor of the home team.

In the match as a whole, Missouri Baptist would finish with a .381 hitting percentage led by an 11-kill performance from Gabi Jakubowska as she finished with a .529 hitting percentage on her own while the top offensive performance for CU came from Kortney Harms with an eight-kill night and a .429 hitting percentage as she would finish two kills and one assist away from a double-double.

Amelia Driver had an efficient 6-for-8 match with only one error for a season-high .625 hitting percentage while Keely Colyer was the only other member of the Pride with more than one kill on the match with middle blockers Kelsey NeCollins and Kaelyn Minich both producing two blocks with NeCollins finishing with two solo blocks and Minich being in on a pair of block assists.

Clarke women's volleyball will head over from St. Louis to Fulton, Mo. for a Saturday morning matchup against William Woods University on Saturday, Sept. 13 when the Pride and Owls face off for a scheduled 11:00 a.m. CT start time.