Nov. 10, 2008
U-Mary Box Score || Northern State Box Score
The Peacock volleyball team spent the past weekend on the road in Bismarck, North Dakota and Aberdeen, South Dakota doing battle with both the weather and a pair of Northern Sun Conference foes. A winter storm made travel on the weekend slow for the team, which made the two losses sting a bit more. On Friday night, Upper Iowa took the court against the University of Mary, a team UIU defeated at home earlier in the season. On Saturday afternoon, the Peacocks faced the Wolves of Northern State University. The Peacocks lost Friday night's match in five sets, 3-2, and then were swept on Saturday by NSU, 3-0. After the two losses Upper Iowa's record slipped to 11-17 overall and 3-13 in NSIC action.
Against U-Mary, Upper Iowa dropped the first two sets, 25-22 and 25-20, and headed into the intermission with their backs against the wall. Coach Robertson refocused the team and the players responded by winning sets three and four easily by 25-15 and 25-17 scores to force a fifth set. In the fifth set, the Peacocks got tight and made 8 errors. The home team picked up the victory with the 15-10 set five win.
Sara Vance and Beth Deutmeyer both recorded 13 kills for the Peacocks. Keri Vance paced the offense with 47 assists, while Shea Meyermann and Tatiana Jackson led the defense with 13 and 11 digs, respectively. The Peacocks served 14 aces in the match, but also registered 11 service aces and 34 hitting errors.
On Sunday, UIU and Northern State got together for an afternoon match. The two teams seemed evenly matched in the first set which NSU took 25-22, but the Wolves took over and dominated the second and third sets. Northern State won the final two sets by 25-17 and 25-13 scores. UIU came up empty on the service line with no aces and seven errors. The Peacock offense struggled putting attacks away; they recorded 36 kills and only 16 errors, but had 118 attack attempts for the match.
The Upper Iowa offense was led by the team's middles Kim Humpal (11 kills) and Deutmeyer (9 kills). Keri Vance handed out 29 assists, while Sara Vance and Jackson led the defense with 11 and 10 digs, respectively.
The Peacocks will finish their 2008 season this week at home in Dorman Gym. Upper Iowa will welcome Winona State on Tuesday (7 p.m.), Minnesota Duluth on Friday (7 p.m.), and then wrap up the season on Saturday against Bemidji State (3 p.m.) Upper Iowa's three NSIC Team Champions will be honored at the intermission of the Winona State match. Deutmeyer and Humpal, the Peacock seniors, will both be recognized before the final match versus Bemidji State.
