Park University Women's Volleyball started slow but finished fast against Grand View to extend a five-match winning streak and jump to 5-3 in conference play after starting 0-3. The Vikings, who came into the match at 5-2 in conference play, dropped to 5-3 and lost the tiebreaker to the Pirates if it ends up mattering at the end of the season. Grand View won the first set, but the Pirates won three in a row after that, clinching their third straight road win.
Indi Zetic led the way for the Pirates, racking up 15 kills, one short of the match leader, Maria Eduarda dos Passos (16). Multiple Pirates were extra special from different stat lines;
Trinity Iverson recorded eight blocks, her third game of the season with eight or more blocks, and added nine kills to it. Isadroa Dias was massive on the digs with 17, and
Indi Zetic followed with 15.
Silvia Albani had 39 of 43 assists for Park and added five service aces to her stat line.
How it happened
Grand View got the early edge behind smart play and home-field advantage, and jumped out to an 11-7 lead. Grand View controlled the set, or so it looked like, before Park went on a big run, winning eight of nine points behind three service aces, one from
Isadora Dias and two from
Claire Bingham, to take the lead for the first time in the set at 19-16. However, a Vikings timeout helped stop the bleeding, and the ship got back on the path, winning seven of the next eight points behind four kills from Kaylee Stalder, to suffocate the Pirates' momentum. Grand View took set one 25-22.
Park saw the first set slip away, saw a slow start as the biggest factor, and fixed it perfectly in set two. Park won the first six points, and eight of the first nine, behind three India Zetic kills, to build a comfortable lead. Two service aces from Grand View got it as close as 11-7, but it never got closer than that the rest of the set. Park closed out the set with three straight kills, and the fast start got the Pirates the lead they needed to win 25-19.
Set three truly lived up to its name, with three-point streaks telling the story. Five three-point runs for Park and four for Grand View had the set going back and forth every few points. A Viking service error won the first point, then Grand View ran three, followed by two for Park, then a second run of three for the Vikings, two for Park, and then a third run of three to take a 9-5 lead. Four different Vikings recorded a kill over the stretch. The set kept of going back and forth in three-point runs, and Park finally tied it at 14-14. The match never got past a two-point spread until the very end, when Park got exactly what it needed with an Isadora kill, a
Trinity Iverson block, and an
Elisa Dalla Pozza service ace to close out the set 25-21.
Park gave no chance to the Vikings in the fourth set, winning the set's first nine points, including four
Silvia Albani aces, and had everything working early. The Vikings never threatened, and the point difference was never less than six, as the Pirates coasted to a set-four win and a match victory.
