MACOMB, Ill. – Behind a strong defensive effort and timely kills, the IUPUI volleyball team downed Western Illinois, 3-0, Saturday evening to pick up its fourth consecutive win. The victory evened the Jaguars conference record at 4-4 after starting conference play at 0-4.

“Even though we lost some of those early matches, we never thought we were out of the conference race because we played really well in those losses,” said head coach Steve Payne. “Our team has been resilient and we never quit.
“I thought tonight we played pretty solid out there and we showed that resiliency I was talking about in set one and it carried over into the other two sets.”

Attack errors hurt IUPUI early in set one as three miscues helped Western Illinois jump out to a 10-3 lead. The Jags cut that seven point deficit to three points on five occasions, but they could not dwindle it further until a Shari Bernhardt ace and a solo block and kill from Moriah Fair evened things at 22. From that point, two more Fair kills and kill by Bethany Fogler capped off the comeback giving IUPUI the 25-22 opening-set win.

Even though they didn’t face a large deficit early in set two, IUPUI’s discrepancy fluctuated between two to four points until a four-point run, featuring two Leathernecks errors and kills by Kelsey Hoefer and Kalyse Reimbold, reversed a two-point deficit into an 18-16 advantage. Still holding on to a two-point cushion, a WIU attack error and a Beth Howard service ace widened the Jaguars lead to 22-18, its largest lead of the set. Just as the Jags established their most comfortable lead, a four-point rally from Western Illinois quickly knotted things back at 22. Consecutive kills by Hoefer gave the Jags set point and following a Leathernecks side out, a dump kill from Alexis Meeks cemented a 25-23 second-set win, placing IUPUI in front two sets to none.

Hoefer led IUPUI to an early lead in the third set, posting two kills and helping out on two blocks as it took a 5-1 advantage. Western Illinois stormed in front at 9-8, but a Leathernecks service error and back-to-back kills from Reimbold put IUPUI back in front, 12-9. Both sides exchanged side outs until a block from Meeks and Fogler followed by a kill from Fair ballooned the Jags lead to 17-13, forcing WIU to burn a timeout. After having its deficit trimmed to two points, IUPUI erased any doubt using a four-point surge to up its lead to 24-18. Three points later, a kill by Hoefer closed out a 25-20 third-set win.

Hoefer led all players with 14 kills, while Reimbold added 13 kills en route to hitting .323. Defensively, the Jaguars tallied 64 digs highlighted by a career-high 19 digs from Fair in addition to 17 digs from Bernhardt.

The Jags kick off a three-match homestand next week beginning with a Tuesday match-up versus Oakland at 7 p.m. The match is volleyball’s Pack the House Match and admission is free.