Volleyball Gets Big Senior Night Win
The Defiance College volleyball team entertained Anderson University on Wednesday evening, October 25th, for their last regular season home game and Senior Night. The Yellow Jackets won in four hard fought sets, improving their record 5-3 in HCAC play.
The Jackets started the first set strong with a serving ace from Marissa Windau and back to back kills from Senior, Danielle Robbins. The Ravens rallied together a string of kills to take the lead over Defiance and held it, until the Jackets were able to string together their own set of kills combined with Anderson errors. Defiance won set one 25-22. Set two started with a battle between the teams. The Yellow Jackets were able to pull ahead and run with a lead, winning 25-18. In set three, Defiance came out with a 9-3 advantage over the Ravens. That quickly turned around when Anderson was able to take advantage of multiple Jacket error and put up some kills for themselves. Anderson won the third set 19-25. Defiance came out on top in the fourth set, recording multiple kills and benefiting from Raven errors. Anderson was quickly able to catch up though, and tied the game at 15. The Jackets then fell behind 16-20. After a few errors from the Anderson side and a kill from Morgan Porter, the game was tied again at 21. More kills from the Ravens lifted their lead to 24-21 over the Jackets. Defiance battled and was able to rally enough points the win the fourth set 26-24.
Marissa Windau led the offensive side of the game for the Jackets with 8 kills, while Jessi Davis was right behind with 7 kills on the night. Windau also had 5 service for the Yellow Jackets. The defense was led by Senior, Jaidyn Patridge, with 21 digs, while Windau had 13. Emma Seitz also recorded 5 blocks against the Raven’s offense. When asked about the game, senior libero, Jaidyn Patridge, said, “I think we got better every set we played, we knew it was a must win game and there was a lot on the line for a good seed in the tournament.” The Jackets travel to Rose-Hulman for their last regular season game on Saturday, October 28th. “For preparing for the next game, we need to execute the game plan early and make sure that we’re on our A game. We have to stay consistent and just play clean volleyball.” explained Patridge. Being a senior, this was Patridge’s last regular season game in the Weaner Center. “It felt bittersweet to play my last regular season game in the Weaner. I wanted to leave it all out on the court!” Defiance has one regular season game left against Rose-Hulman. The results of this game will determine tournament placement for the Yellow Jackets.
Written by Michaela Bauer
