Fort Lewis College volleyball lost a heartbreaker last night 3-2 in an intense match that went five sets against the Adams State University Grizzlies.
Adams State won 20-25, 25-18, 23-25, 33-31, 15-9 in a back-and-forth match that had people on the edge of their seat until the final ball hit the court.
The first set was dominated early and often by the Skyhawks, mainly with their defense at the net. The Skyhawks had three total team blocks in the first set which gave them a huge boost and allowed them to gain an early lead. Senior outside hitter Emily Dellenbach added on four kills in the first set to help the Hawks.
Despite the momentum being on the side of the Skyhawks after the first set, the Grizzlies would not roll over. ASU went on a 7-1 run to take the lead 13-12 and never relinquished it again in the second set, eventually winning the set 25-18.
In the third, it was truly a set of runs. ASU took the early lead 7-1 which eventually exploded to 8-14. Then the Skyhawks turned it on and could seemingly do nothing wrong. FLC went on a 12-2 run that put them up 20-16 and they took that momentum to an eventual 25-23 third set victory.
The fourth set is when everything started getting interesting. The set was teeter-tottering from one team to the other throughout and the set went to extra points, eventually ending 33-31 in favor of the Grizzlies.
Despite losing the set, FLC junior middle blocker Laine Waters was a force to be reckoned with late in the set and kept the Skyhawks in it. Waters had four kills on nine attack attempts to go along with a block at the net of ASU. Late in the set she was tremendously clutch for FLC.
On the defensive side of the ball for the Skyhawks, junior libero Megan Graefe was all over the place. She had 11 digs just in the fourth set and was flying around to get them. It was quite the thing to watch a young student athlete putting it all on the line for her team.
Going into the fifth set, it was anybody’s game, but the Grizzlies proved to be too much for the run down Skyhawks as ASU pulled out the set 15-9 and the match 3-2.
For FLC, five players had double digit kills, with junior Maddie LeBlanc leading all Skyhawks with 14 of her own. Junior setter Kendra Swackenberg led FLC with 55 assists and Graefe was the match leader in digs with 34.
On ASU’s side, Senior Mallory Grimsrud led all players in kills with 21 on 44 attacks. Sophomore setter Rachel Ringler led all players with 56 assists while for players on ASU had double-digit digs, with freshman Julianna Zamora leading the way with 22.
The loss dropped FLC to 8-11 overall and 3-8 in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference with their next game being at home on Saturday at 5 p.m. against Westminster.