MIAA Volleyball Notes: Week Eight

Central Missouri
The Jennies have won 13 straight matches by 3-0 scores. The streak breaks the record for the most consecutive straight set victories, set originally in 1982.

Paula Harris is ranked fifth in Division II with a .434 hitting percentage going into last week. Harris also leads the MIAA, and has posted a hitting percentage above .400 in five of her last seven matches.

With the win over Northwest Missouri last week, the Jennies have now been victorious in 33 straight matches against Missouri schools. The Jens have defeated 10 different schools during the streak. The Jennies have yet to drop a match to any in-state rival since Flip Piontek was named head coach in 2009. 

Emporia State
Meg Schwartz has 24 straight double figure dig matches. She leads the MIAA and is 10th in the nation in digs per set. If the season ended today her average of 5.62 would ranks first all-time for a Hornet in a single season. She is the only player in the nation to record more than thirty digs in a match four times. She has four of the top seven digs matches in the MIAA this season as well as having the top two dig matches in four sets this year. She also had 11 digs in just one set against Southwest Baptist earlier this season.

True freshman Courtney Haring is leading the MIAA in blocks and is fourth in the nation and leading all freshmen in blocks. She has the top two block matches in three sets in the MIAA this season with nine against Minnesota Crookston and eight against Post. She has propelled the Hornets to be the 11th best blocking team in the country.

Katie Deutschmann became the second Hornet in as many seasons to record a triple double with 13 kills, 22 assists and 12 digs for the Hornets against #5 Washburn. She is just the seventh player to record a triple double nationwide this season. She and Northwest Nazarene's Kaitlyn Tuholski are the only freshman in NCAA Division II to record a triple double this year. She joins Liu as the last two MIAA players to record the feat as Liu did it against West Texas A&M on Nov. 17, 2010. She ranks fifth in the MIAA and 84th in nation in hitting percentage. Her hitting percentage of .750 against Missouri Southern tied Paula Harris of UCM for the second best hitting performance in the MIAA this season.

Missouri Western
Volleyball snapped a four match losing streak defeating Missouri Southern 3-0 on the road on Tuesday.

For Western it was their first road victory of the season.

Alex Behnke hit an outstanding .692 in the match with 10 kills on 13 attacks.

Western had their best hitting percentage in a match at .337 with 40 kills and just 11 errors on 86 attacks.

Northwest Missouri
In Northwest's 3-0 loss to No. 7 Central Missouri senior setter Laira Akin continued her great senior season accounting for 33 of the Bearcats' 37 assists in the match. Akin added 10 digs recording her tenth double-double of the season.

Abby Graves had a team-high 13 kills and earned her fifth double-double of the season contributing 10 digs in the loss as well while Tori Beckman chipped in 16 digs for the Bearcats.

Freshman Brooke Bartosh is currently leading the Bearcats in kills with 175 on the season. Another freshman, Abby Graves, is close behind in second place with 170 kills respectively.

Going into the week, the Bearcats were ranked second in blocks in the MIAA averaging 2.24 per set. In the Bearcats lone game for the week of Oct. 10 Amy Majors contributed two blocks.

The Bearcats will have three conference games this week. First Northwest will travel to Pittsburg, Mo. to take on the Gorillas. The Bearcats will the return home to host two MIAA games this weekend. Friday night Northwest will welcome Southwest Baptist with tip-off set for 7 p.m. The Bearcats will then host Missouri Southern on Saturday night in their homecoming game. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m. with admission to Saturday night's game being free.

Truman
Truman (13-9, 2-4 MIAA) went 3-1 last weekend (Oct. 14-15) at the Arkansas Tech University Invitational in Russellville, Ark. The Bulldogs defeated future-MIAA opponent Lindenwood, along with Sioux Falls (S.D.) and Henderson (Ark.) State at the event, but lost to the host Golden Suns in the tournament finale.

The Bulldogs played 14 sets and hit .188 for the four matches, averaging 11.93 kills per set. Truman out-served its opponents, 24-15, and averaged 2.79 blocks per set (39 total).

Against Lindenwood, the Bulldogs set a new five-set program record with 21 blocks, also good for second-most in program-history (23 vs. WU on Nov. 17, 2007). Megan Sharpe (12), Allie Brak (6) and Molly Sinclair (5) all set new career-bests blocking in the match against the Lions.

For the season, the two-time all-American - Megan Sharpe – continues to be the top all-around threat by averaging 2.90 kills and 1.13 blocks per set while hitting .309. Allie Brak ranks second on the squad both in kills (2.52) and digs (3.29), while Abby Moser remains one of the nation's best liberos at 5.45 digs per set (463 total).

The Bulldogs begin the final four-week stretch of the season with three matches this week, starting on Tuesday, Oct. 18, night at SBU. Truman returns to Pershing Arena this Friday (Oct. 21) against MSSU and Saturday (Oct. 22) against PSU.

Washburn
The Lady Blues swept Fort Hays State, 25-18, 25-19, 25-23, Tuesday night to give head coach Chris Herron his 300th career win at Washburn.

No. 5 Washburn (21-1, 8-0 MIAA) has now won 13 straight overall and 17 straight in the MIAA. The Lady Blues will put those streaks on the line Friday against seventh-ranked Central Missouri at 7 p.m. in Lee Arena. They will also put their home winning streak of 34 straight matches on the line.

Herron improved to 300-53 (.850) to become the only current MIAA coach with 300 wins. He's already Washburn's all-time leader in wins and winning percentage and this is the second time he's led a team to 300 or more wins. He won 366 matches at Tonganoxie (Kan.) High School.

Herron reached 300 wins in his 10th year and no other MIAA school has won that many matches in the last 10 seasons.

The Lady Blues have now been in the top 10 in the AVCA national poll 34 straight weeks and they've been ranked in the top 25 103 straight times.

With 293 total blocks, Mollie Lacy needs seven to join the 1,000 kills/300 blocks club. Only seven Lady Blues have earned that distinction.

Chris Herron is 126-13 (.906) in Lee Arena with two wins last week. The Lady Blues have won 34 straight at home with the last loss coming on September 25, 2009, against Central Missouri. They are 9-0 this year and went 14-0 last year.