The La Roche College women's volleyball team pieced together an amazing comeback victory on Friday night. Houghton grabbed a 2-0 match lead and looked likely to cruise to victory, but the Redhawks railled for three straight set wins and a 3-2 match victory (21-25, 20-25, 25-19, 25-21, 15-12). La Roche improves to 6-10 with the win.
Houghton was in control through the first two sets. The outcome looked bleak for the Redhawks, but they kept fighting and turned things around in the third set.
La Roche turned a 7-4 deficit into a 10-7 set 3 lead. The Redhawks used three Houghton errors and Hannah Scott capped the run with two straight aces. Houghton recovered and did not let La Roche run away with it, but a Bethany Nulph kill closed the set at 25-19.
The Redhawks again had to battle back in set 4. They trailed by as many as five points at 16-11. Laura Nath swung the momentum, throwing down kills in four of the next five points. La Roche evened it at 21-21, and then took over. Reilee Bradford and Nath followed with kills and two Houghton errors ended it.
La Roche came up big in the decisive fifth set. Nath tied it at 10-10, and then put them ahead 11-10. Houghton gave away three points and Kayla Gramm solidified the comeback, spiking down a Bailey McDonald set.
Nath put together a 22 kill performance. Bradford finished with 10 kills and Gramm 8 kills. Sarah Storino and McDonald combined for 46 assists. Gramm and Ingrid Spear each had 3 block assists and Scott had 40 digs.
The Redhawks split Saturday's slate of matches. They opened the day with a 3-0 sweep of Alfred State. Misericorida took the late match, topping La Roche in three sets. More to come as information becomes available.
Photo by Sam Terry.