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

Box Score

WHEATON, Ill. (Oct. 4, 2019) – Unable to hold on to a 2-1 lead, the North Central College women's volleyball team dropped a 3-2 match to Albion College on Friday in a neutral site match inside Wheaton College's King Arena.

North Central (5-14) came out of the gate slow, never leading in the opening set en route to a 25-13 defeat and found themselves down early in the second set as well as Albion scored six of the first eight points.

Taking advantage of five Albion attack errors over a six-points span, Carson Smalley and Sarah Geosling teamed up for a pair of blocks over that run, while Geosling and Kailee Thacker also recorded kills to overtake the lead 9-6.

The Cardinals led the rest of the second set to even the match with a 25-16 victory, recording 12 kills to just five errors, while Albion committed 11 attack errors in the set.

Two kills from each of Thacker and Smalley highlighted the Cardinal run early in set three as North Central took an early 11-4 lead but Albion mounted a late comeback to tie the score 19-19.

Once more, kills from Thacker and Smalley as well as an Albion attack error provided the Cardinals some breathing room late 22-19, before Smalley hammered home the set-winning kill off an assist from Reagan Raymer a few points later to give North Central a 2-1 match lead.

That proved to be the highlight of the match however, as the Cardinals only led for one point the rest of the match as Albion opened the fourth set with an 8-2 run and the fifth with a 6-2 run to steal away the match.

Albion (13-5) held a 59-46 advantage in kills and a 10-4 margin in service aces, while hitting almost .090 points higher than North Central in what proved to be the difference in the final two sets.

10 kills from Raymer led the team, while Smalley finished with nine and Thacker and Kaitlyn Boelter-Eberhardt each tallied eight.  Maya Bryant finished with a team-high 22 assists, while Raymer added 19.

Defensively, Lexi Barry led the Cardinals with 20 digs, while Katelynn Kuehl added 14 and Ramyer finished with 11.

Kate Winter and Chloe Webber each tallied 14 kills to pace the Albion offense, while Kelsey Gustafson also finished in double figures with 12.  Grace VanDorn handed out a match-high 33 assists, while Jenna Khoury led all players with 27 digs and five aces.

The Cardinals return home on Saturday, Oct. 5 hosting Dubuque University in a non-conference match at 2:30 inside Gregory Arena.  Links to live in-match coverage are available HERE.

Download the free North Central Cardinals app, available for iOS and Android devices, to receive up-to-the-minute news, scores and updates on your favorite North Central teams. Click HERE for more information.