INDIANAPOLIS – The IUPUI volleyball team fell behind in the first two sets of Saturday night's match against Youngstown State but completed the comeback with a reverse sweep, 3-2. The Jags earned their second straight Horizon League win with the comeback.
The opening set started off slow with the Jags and Penguins exchanging service errors for a fast 5-3 start in favor of the Jags. While IUPUI started off with the lead, attack errors proved costly as the Jags totaled eight errors, falling in the first set, 25-21.
In the second set, the Jags held the lead through the media timeout, 15-13. Coming out of the timeout, due to a service error, the Penguins gained some momentum going on a 7-1 run taking the lead from the Jags, 20-16. While the Jags fought to stay in the set they couldn't comeback falling behind two sets, 25-22.
With a few arguable calls on both sides of the court, the energy in the Jungle was set for a back-and-forth, high stakes third set.
Morgan Ostrowski collected two kills late in the third set to seal the win and force a fourth set, 25-19. IUPUI held onto the momentum in the fourth set recording a .286 hitting percentage to seal the set victory and tying the match, 25-19.
The match win was on the line as the Jags and Penguins began the fifth and final set. They were evenly matched, tied at 9-9. The Penguins committed an attack error giving the Jags the serve, allowing
Briana Brown to serve up an ace.
Emily Alan followed with a kill giving IUPUI the 11-9 lead forcing Youngstown State to take a timeout. The Penguins came out of the timeout strong, tying the match at 13-13. The Jags refused to go down, collecting back-to-back points with
Ava Harris sealing the match with a kill.
Freshman
Maia Long led the Jaguar attack with 14 kills followed by the trio of Ostrowksi, Harris and Alan each collecting 11 kills.
Grace Purichia set them up for the kills, collecting 43 assists and a team-high 24 digs. Brown totaled three service aces.
The Jaguars are now 8-10 overall and 2-5 in the Horizon League after earning back-to-back wins this weekend. They next travel to Wright State on Friday, October 13 for a 6:00 PM first serve.
