DES MOINES, Iowa. – The Drake volleyball team played its first match in front of its home fans this season on Tuesday night as it hosted the UNI Panthers for a Missouri Valley Conference rivalry match. Unfortunately for the Bulldogs, the Panthers played spoiler for the home opener and won the match in four sets, 3-1.
In the first set, the Panthers jumped out ahead early after a 5-0 run gave them a 6-2 advantage over the Bulldogs and forced a timeout from Drake. UNI kept its early momentum rolling as it further increased its lead out to 17-8 and caused the Bulldogs to take another timeout. Following the break, Drake used a 3-0 run, highlighted by a combo block from
Bliss Beck and
Kacia Brown, to cut the deficit down to 17-11. However, the Panthers immediately with another 5-0 run to push the score to 22-11. Shortly thereafter UNI won the set, 25-13.
The Bulldogs and Panthers went back-and-forth to begin the set second of the match, but Drake was able to grab its first lead since the opening point at 8-7 off a
Caroline Smith kill. The two sides proceeded to continue to trade points ultimately coming together at the halfway point, 13-13. From there, UNI went a 3-0 run to go up, 16-13, but the Bulldogs had a counter of their own with a 4-0 run to tie the frame, 18-18. Over that stretch, the Bulldogs got kills from
Macy Daufeldt and
Aniyah Davis as well as a couple of attack errors on the part of the Panthers. During the final stretch however, it was all UNI as the Panthers took seven of the next nine points to win the set, 25-20.
Needing to win the third set to stay alive, the Bulldogs fought to an even 8-8 point in the beginning of the frame. At the halfway mark, UNI gained a little bit of separation going up 14-10 and Drake called a timeout to regroup. Moments later, Drake was right back in it and tied the set at 19-19 with a
Kacia Brown kill. Drake and UNI remained tied with the score reaching the 24-24 point, but the Bulldog defense came up big to close out the set. Following a UNI attack error, the set closing point was secured by a combo block from Davis and Smith to give Drake 26-24 win.
The fourth set saw UNI get out to another fast start over the Bulldogs, 5-2, using a 4-0 scoring streak, but the Bulldogs slowly chipped away and brought it back to even at 11-11 due to back-to-back errors from the Panthers. Another run by the Panthers shortly after put the visitors back out in front by five at the 17-12 mark and the Bulldogs were forced to call a timeout. When play resumed the Drake offense tried to get in a groove but couldn't quite come together and eventually the set and the match went by way of the Panthers, 25-19, and 3-1.
"I think the biggest takeaway for us on a positive side was we scrambled, and we worked really hard to try and keep ourselves relevant throughout the match even when we got down," Drake head coach
Darrin McBroom said. "We found ways to win a lot of the long rallies and at times pushed UNI to wear them down a little bit. It's tough coming home and starting with the top team in the Valley right away, but it's a good test for us to know where we are at. For us, we just need to clean up some things and every night in the Valley is challenging. No night is easy, but if we get some things cleaned up, we can be in the hunt for a shot at a win on Friday night."
Daufeldt and Brown were the offensive leaders for the Bulldogs on the night as the pair recorded 12 kills each. Defensively, Daufeldt tallied 17 digs to complete the double-double effort while Brown notched eight digs.
Addison Beagle led the Bulldogs in assists with 18 while also tallying eight digs and
Katie Quick added 14 assists with six digs.
Gabbie Schroeder led the team in digs on the defensive side of the net with 24.
Drake remains at home for its next match later in the week as it hosts Murray State on Friday, Oct. 3. First serve versus the Racers is slated for 6 p.m. CT.
