Contact: Drew Sauer, Assistant Sports Information Director, 630-637-5324

Box Score

Sept. 21, 2018 – In a hard fought opening match of the 2018 Tiffany Robinson Memorial Tournament, the North Central College women's volleyball team fell just shy on Friday against Anderson University, falling 3-1 inside Merner Fieldhouse.

The Cardinals (1-11) actually out-killed the Ravens (7-7) on the evening by a 45-42 margin, but were plagued by 27 attack errors and 11 service errors which proved to be the difference in the match.

Coming out slow in the opening set, North Central fell behind early, forced to take a timeout trailing 14-7 and never recovered eventually dropping the set 25-17.

The second set began much like the first, with Anderson jumping out to a 8-3 lead, once again forcing a North Central timeout.  Coming out of the timeout, the Cardinals roared back, scoring seven of the next nine points to even the score 10-10.  The Cardinal rally was highlighted by kills from Anna Billman, Kimberly Epker and Reagan Raymer, while four unforced Raven errors aided in the Cardinal comeback.

The two teams went back-and-forth down the stretch, as another kill from Raymer gave the Cardinals a late 21-20 lead, however the Ravens would take advantage of three Cardinal errors in the last five points to steal away the second set 25-21 and take a 2-0 match lead.

Once again trailing midway through the third set 18-12, the Cardinal offense came alive to score eight of the next nine points as Kayla Dabrowski turned in three kills during the rally and Raymer added two more to quickly turn the tables and give North Central its first lead of the set 20-19.

Unlike the third set however, the Cardinals were not going to let this one slip away, as a kill from Epker and an attack error from the Ravens gave the Cardinals a two-point advantage 22-20.  Three points later, a Katelynn Kuehl kill set up set point for North Central, before Billman clinched the third set victory with a kill the following point, keeping the Cardinals alive in the match with a 25-22 third set win.

Having seemed to turn the tides of the match, North Central charged out to a 10-8 lead in the fourth, causing a Anderson timeout, but that lead quickly dissipated as the Ravens came out of the timeout and proceeded to go on a 10-2 run.  That run proved to be the turning point of the set, as Anderson closed out the match with a 25-16 final set victory.

Raymer led all players with a career-high 16 kills on the evening, while committing just one error to hit .417, also a career best average.  Dabrowski finished with seven kills, while Kiarah Horn handed out a career-best 38 assists.  Ana Cvetkovic added 18 digs on defense, while Billman entered the program's career top-10 in blocks, as her two total from this evening mover her into 10^th with 181 career blocks.

Kylie Osborne led the Ravens with 14 kills, while Felicity Bontrager also finished in double-figures with 11.  Kaycie Gates led Anderson with 25 assists, while Brooke Troyer tallied a match-high 19 digs.

North Central continues play on day two of the Tiffany Robinson Memorial Tournament, hosting Lakeland University (Wisconsin) at 12 p.m., followed by Maranatha Baptist University (Wisconsin) at 6 p.m.  The link to the tournament webpage is available HERE.