ALLENDALE, Mich. – The Grand Valley State volleyball team dropped a four-set match (22-25, 21-25, 25-20, 17-25) against #14 ranked Ferris State on Friday night in a home GLIAC match. With the loss, GVSU drops to 7-9 overall and 3-5 in conference play, while Ferris State improves to 13-3 overall and 7-1 in league play.
The Lakers held a slight advantage in most statistical categories despite dropping the match. GVSU led in kills (50-46), assists (48-42), digs (76-75), and points (62-58), but Ferris owned an attack percentage of .173 to the Lakers .153.
Sophomore
Ali Thompson had a career-high 22 kills to go along with a .404 attack percentage, while freshman
Karlie Kucharczyk added 11 kills and seven digs. Freshman
Rachel Jacquay totaled 35 assists and senior
Kendall Yerkes had a team-high 24 digs.
GVSU started the match strong by scoring the first four points and extended their lead out to 9-3. The Lakers were leading 13-9 before the Bulldogs went on a 3-0 run and later overtook the lead at 17-16. GVSU would answer with a trio of kills from Thompson, Kucharczyk, and
Emma Clines to go up 19-17, however, Ferris State came back with four straight points to take control of the set. The Bulldogs would end the set on a service error.
Set two was back and forth at the beginning before the Lakers would go on a 5-0 run to lead 12-9. Ferris State would put together a run of their own to take the lead and go up 17-14 on four straight Laker attack errors. GVSU would cut the deficit to just one point but could not tie the set and fell 25-21.
The two teams began set three by trading points. GVSU would be the first to take control and took leads of 10-7 and 14-10 before Ferris State would score three straight points to cut the lead to 14-13. The Lakers would grab their largest lead of the set at 21-16 on a pair of Thompson kills and weathered a Ferris State comeback to take the set 25-20.
Set four was all Ferris State as the Bulldogs jumped out early and led 12-7 before increasing their lead to 18-9. GVSU would go on a run late to trim the deficit but it was not enough and fell 25-17.
The Lakers will be back home again tomorrow (Oct. 12) against Northwood at 4:00 P.M.
