DES MOINES, Iowa – The Drake volleyball team was back in front of its home fans in the Knapp Center on Friday night as it took on the Indiana State Sycamores for another Missouri Valley Conference duel. Looking to keep its winning streak intact, the Bulldogs battled through some early adversity but came out on top with a four set victory to increase their winning streak to six in-a-row.
In the first set of the night Drake and Indiana State went back-and-forth to start the action as an
Aniyah Davis kill set the score at 7-7. At just over the halfway point, however, the Sycamores gained a little bit of separation following a spurt of winning four of six points to go up 17-13. Shortly after, Drake fought its way back and used a 4-0 scoring spurt to jump in front of Indiana State, 20-19, getting a big time combo block from Davis and
Claudia Aschenbrenner to cap the run. The two sides then went back to trading points until the Sycamores ended the set with a 3-0 run to claim the win, 27-25.
To start the second set Drake found itself trailing early on, 8-5, but responded with a 4-0 run to claim a 10-9 lead. During that span
Bliss Beck provided two kills and
Caroline Smith tallied a kill as well to give the Bulldogs some momentum. Neither side would break away from the other over the next few points until another 4-0 run from the Bulldogs gave them the edge, 21-18. The Sycamores did eventually pull within a point at 24-23, but
Kacia Brown delivered the final blow to give Drake the set win, 25-23, and even the match.
Drake and Indiana State started the third set in another competitive swing coming together at 9-9. Just before the media timeout, however, Drake used a 3-0 run to make the score 15-11 in its favor starting the streak with a combo block by Beck and Smith followed up with kills by
Macy Daufeldt and Smith. The Bulldogs never lost grasp of the lead from there and stretched their lead out to six, 23-17, with Beck recording another kill. It wasn't long after that Daufeldt secured the frame, 25-19, and put Drake in the driver's seat.
After matching each other all the way to the 8-8 mark to begin the fourth set, Drake broke free from Indiana State to gain its first larger lead of the frame using a 4-0 run and forcing the Sycamore bench to call timeout. Indiana State did cut the Drake lead back down to 13-12, but the Bulldogs countered with another scoring spurt, highlighted by a
Emaline Handzel service, to push the score to 17-12. The momentum stayed with Drake the remainder of the way and it was eventually put to an end off another kill by Smith securing the set, 25-20, and the match, 3-1.
Drake had two players set season-high marks for kills in the match with Brown going for 24 and Beck hitting 10. Brown also reached a double-double tallying 10 digs on the night. Meanwhile, Daufeldt and
Addison Beagle also secured double-doubles. Daufeldt finished with 22 kills and a team-leading mark of 17 digs and Beagle led with 30 assists to go along with 10 digs.
Katie Quick wasn't far behind Beagle in the assist department with 28 to her credit.
The Bulldogs will take to the court again tomorrow evening with a match against Illinois State. First serve versus the Redbirds from the Knapp Center is slated for 5 p.m. CT.
