Upper Iowa opened the 2016 season in Springfield, Illinois on Friday with a pair of matches at the Capital Classic hosted by the University of Illinois-Springfield. The Peacocks finished on the wrong side of a tightly-contested, five-set match (25-22, 21-25, 25-21, 21-25, 18-16) in the afternoon versus the Tigers of the University of West Alabama, but bounced back with a quick, three-set sweep over the host Prairie Stars (25-13, 25-18, 26-24) in the day's final match.
The Peacocks and Tigers locked up in a five-set match in the teams' season openers. During the first four sets, the teams exchanged victories, but none of the wins came by more than four points. In the fifth and final set, West Alabama moved out to an 11-7 lead at the midway point, but Upper Iowa rallied to pull within one, 12-11. UIU scored five points over the course of six serves to grab a 16-15 advantage, but three straight points by the Tigers' Yanesha Johnson on a kill and two service aces gave UWA the set and match win. Both teams struggled on offense but came alive in particular sets; for the match the Tigers hit .202 with 64 kills, while the Peacocks hit .179 with 52 kills.
Alisha VanderWoude led the offense for UIU with 13 kills and converted her attempts at a .500 clip.
Bethany Lovhaug added 9 kills and hit .471 and newcomer
Haley Poula and
Chelsea Berry registered 8 and 7 kills, respectively.
Malissa LeClaire paced the attack with 27 assists, while
Ashley Larson held down the back line with 19 digs.
In the nightcap, the Peacocks swept the home team and found their stride quickly on offense. Upper Iowa hit .346 in the first set and .312 in the second set while posting dominating set wins 25-13 and 25-18. The Prairie Stars fought back in the third set, but back-to-back kills from
Miranda LeJeune and
Kelsey Hinrichs gave Upper Iowa a two-point set win and their first match victory of the season.
VanderWoude led the balanced attack in the second match with 9 kills, while Berry, Hinrichs and LeJeune each had 7 kills. LeClaire handed out 19 assists and freshman
Carlee Ketchum dished out 13 after 10 in the first match. Hinrichs notched a match-high 14 digs, while Larson followed closely with 10.
After the match, Head Coach
Aaron Nelson said, "We played very well for the most part all day. Our serving and passing were exceptional. We were able to get both teams out of their system with our serving by being aggressive and picking out the correct targets and our passing allowed us to get the ball to our middles which opened things up for everyone else. We showed great offensive balance on the day, but especially tonight against a UIS team that played very well earlier today. The match tonight against the Prairie Stars was one of the better matches we've played in my time at Upper Iowa. We are very pleased with our first day of competition."
