FAYETTE, Iowa - Multiple Peacocks posted career marks in Friday's thrilling win in five sets (25-18, 22-25, 26-24, 23-25, 15-13) over Quincy (Ill.) (17-9, 4-6 GLVC) in Dorman Memorial Gymnasium. With the win, Upper Iowa (12-11, 5-6 GLVC) moved into eighth place in the GLVC standings.
Erica Conger led the Peacock offense with a career-high 20 kills on a .310 attack percentage. She also posted a career-high 26 points with five aces and a block. Her 20 kills and 26 points were the most by any Peacock in a single match this season.
Setter Grace Fruzen totaled a career-high 56 assists with nine digs, three blocks and three kills. It marked her second match with 50 or more assists this season and her fourth match with 40 or more assists. Friday's match was also the fourth 50-assist match of Fruzen's career.
Junior Morgan Block totaled 28 digs, tying for her third-most in a match this season. She added six assists, three service aces and a dig kill while going a perfect 21-for-21 on service receptions. Block is 19 digs away from 1,000 in her career entering Saturday's match.
Senior Kailey Porter surpassed 500 career kills with her first of the night, and finished the match with 11 kills. She had three solo blocks in the middle and two block assists for a total of 15 points. Porter posted her 500th kill in the third set to take an early 4-2 lead.
Marissa Becker posted a double-double with 13 kills and 11 digs. Natalie Bystol added 11 kills while Faith Fisher had six. Addy Vaughn tallied 17 digs with a service ace, and Avery Agnew had nine digs.
With the score tied 10-10 in the first set, three straight Peacock blocks by Fisher, Porter, Conger and Becker, along with a bad set and a Becker kill, put UIU up 15-10. Three straight Conger kills later in the set gave the Peacocks a 23-16 lead to eventually win it, 25-18.
Bystol and Conger each had four kills in the first set, with Bystol hitting .667. As a team, the Peacocks hit .300 in the opening frame, their highest in a set in the match.
Quincy controlled the second set, making the Peacocks play from behind the entire way. The Hawks jumped out to a 10-5 lead that was extended to 14-7 after back-to-back Porter attack errors. UIU used a pair of 4-0 runs to get the lead down to three at 23-20, but the Hawks settled down and won it, 25-22.
The tone was set for the rest of the match in the third set, which featured 14 ties and eight lead changes. Neither team led by more than two points. With UIU trailing 24-23 late, Porter knocked down a kill and posted a solo block to lead by one. Bystol ended the set with a kill to win it, 26-24.
Conger had seven kills in the set and hit .538. Porter posted five after not having any in the previous two sets, and came alive with a .667 hitting percentage. The Peacocks hit .232 in the set while the Hawks hit .256.
The fourth set featured six ties and two lead changes. Quincy took an early 5-0 lead, but an 11-3 run by the Peacocks later in the set gave UIU an 18-14 advantage. After Amaralyse Rodriguez knocked down a service ace to lead 21-19, the Hawks responded, scoring six of the next eight points to win the set, 25-23.
The score remained close in the fifth until the 9-9 mark. UIU scored back-to-back points on a Hawk attack error and a bad set. Later, kills by Gracen Klima and Conger put UIU up 13-10. After the Hawks scored back-to-back points, Porter knocked down the final two kills to win the set and the match, 15-13.
This marked the second win in five sets for the Peacocks this season, as the team last won against Auburn Montgomery (Ala.) in five sets during the opening weekend. UIU snapped a three-match losing streak in five sets with Friday's victory.
Quincy's Erin Matzke led the team with 12 kills, while Aysem Kocaalp, Olivia Curry and Monika Bíliková each had 11. Bíliková had a team-best .391 hitting percentage while Matzke hit .375. Macey Rocco posted 47 assists with 17 digs, and Amber Glen had a team-high in digs with 20.
The Peacocks had 11 service aces to Quincy's five. This is the fifth time this season that UIU has had a five-or-more service-ace advantage. Upper Iowa has out-service-aced teams in 13 out of the 23 matches this season.
Upper Iowa outkilled Quincy, 66-57, with a 64-53 advantage on assists and an 84-82 advantage on digs. The Hawks slightly unblocked UIU, 10-9, and slightly outhit the Peacocks, .183-.176.
UIU is back in action on Saturday at 3 p.m. against Illinois Springfield (7-17, 1-9 GLVC) in Dorman Memorial Gymnasium for Halloween. The Prairie Stars suffered their third straight three-set loss to Truman State (Mo.) (12-12, 6-5 GLVC) on Thursday.
