WINONA LAKE, Ind. - With a short-handed squad, Grace's volleyball team gave No. 16 Mt. Vernon Nazarene all it could handle on Wednesday night.
The No. 18 Lancers fell narrowly in five hard-fought sets against the Cougars (26-3, 13-3 Crossroads League). The winning team won by three or fewer points in all five sets.
Despite the loss, Liz Schmidt reached a personal milestone. The junior recorded the 1,000th dig of her career, doing so with a stellar performance.
Schmidt amassed 31 digs, one off her career high, to lead Grace's defensive effort.
The Lancers (19-7, 12-4 CL) were down two starters during Wednesday's NAIA Top-20 battle. But Grace showed no signs of making excuses.
In the opening set, Grace jumped out to a 22-18 lead. But the Cougars quickly rallied with a 5-1 run to even the score at 23s.
Livia Tate had a kill on the next point, but the Cougars countered again and snuck away with a 27-25 win.
Grace's offense was dynamic in the second set. Grace racked up 17 kills on just six errors to even up the match with a 25-23 win.
A pivotal 7-0 run midway in the second set gave Grace momentum, and four late kills from Anna Ballengee won the set by two.
The third set was another nailbiter with Grace again winning 25-23. Alisha Voss had kills on Grace's final two points, and Sahara Bee racked up six kills in the third set alone.
The Cougars scored the first five points of the fourth set, and MVNU built up a 20-13 lead.
Grace did its best to recover with a 9-4 run, but the Cougars held on to win 25-22 to force a tiebreaker.
The fifth set stayed true to the rest of the match. The teams exchanged small leads but fought fiercely until the end.
Grace gained the first separation at 8-6 to force a Cougar timeout. MVNU answered with four unanswered points, eventually clawing ahead 13-9.
But after a Grace timeout, the Lancers rattled off four points in a row. Voss had a block and a kill to tie the score at 13-13.
The Cougars managed to hold on late, however, benefitting from a pair of attack errors to grab the 15-13 victory.
Alisha Voss amassed 19 kills (.314 percentage) to go along with a solo block and three block assists.
Ballengee finished with 14 kills and two block assists, and Bee tallied 12 kills and four block assists.
Morgan Syoen tallied 30 assists with eight digs, and Riley Owens added 23 assists and 13 digs.
Livia Tate notched 7 kills, 1 solo block and 5 block assists, Brea Harris had five kills and five digs, and Leah Henderson added three kills and three block assists.
Olivia Martinez collected 15 digs with four kills, and McKenzie Stakely had 14 digs.
The Lancers have two matches remaining in the regular season, first playing at Huntington on Saturday. Grace's regular season finale will be next week on Wednesday against No. 24 Marian at 7 p.m.
