Sam Von Tobel recaps IU Volleyball’s disappointing loss to Michigan State.
The Hoosiers’ volleyball team lost 3-1 (24-26, 25-23, 25-20, 25-17) Friday night against Michigan State.
The Hoosiers, coming off two consecutive wins, fall to 10-13 (2-9 Big Ten) on the season.
The night started off with an exciting first set in which the Hoosiers battled back from an 18-23 deficit to win in dramatic fashion 26-24. The Hoosiers could not maintain the momentum however, as they dropped a tight second set and then were man-handled in the final two sets.
A tense moment came in the third set when IU starter Morgan Leach fell to the floor, writhing in pain from an injury, which rendered her needful of assistance getting off the floor. A hush fell over the whole gymnasium, which then erupted in applause as Leach eventually made her way off. Although looking bad initially, Leach made enough improvement on the sideline to come back briefly near the end of the fourth set. Head Coach Sherry Dunbar said that it was an ankle injury.
“We’ll see how [Leach] does and hopefully she can play the match tomorrow night,” Dunbar said.
IU’s Kelci Marschall, who finished with a team high 14 kills, said, “We need to bounce back. We can’t dwell on this and hang on it and overanalyze it because it’s a tough loss.” Marshall prefaced the Hoosiers next match by adding, “Michigan’s a really good team, and we need to be more hungry to get that win.”
Michigan is currently 16-9 (4-7). Indiana leads the all-time series 36-33-1.
With nine games left to play, a run to the NCAA Tournament will be difficult, but not impossible for the Hoosiers.
We need to get back to that level of play that we had this past week,” Indiana’s Samantha Thrower said, referring to IU’s recent conference wins against Purdue and Wisconsin.
Coach Dunbar added, “[The team needs to] serve aggressive, defensive mentality; stop making so many errors on our side of the court; force them to make errors on their side of the court.”
The Hoosiers finished with 27 attack errors and 10 service errors.
Junior Jordan Haverly was second on the team with 12 kills, adding eight digs. Thrower and Leach also added eight and seven kills, respectively. Senior Whitney Granado led the team with 14 digs, with Courtney Harnish, Melanie Hicks, and Caitlin Hansen each adding nine digs.
Lauren Wicinski led Michigan State in kills and also had seven digs. The Spartans’ Kori Moster had an astounding 23 digs.
The Hoosiers chance to rebound will come at home against Michigan on Saturday Night at 7 p.m.
