GOSHEN, Ind. — Taylor Eash led all players with 7 kills and the Goshen College women's volleyball team turned in its highest-scoring set of the season Wednesday night in a 25-8, 25-21, 25-11 loss to top-ranked Marian University at Gunden Gymnasium.
The Maple Leafs (0-9) hit .171 with 12 kills against 6 errors in the second set and finished the match with 19 kills against 19 errors, good for their third-best hitting percentage of the season. Goshen outblocked Marian 5-4 as Eash led all players with three stuffs.
Marian (8-2) almost doubled up Goshen in kills, where it was 37-19, and total points, 51-25. The Knights racked up 10 aces to Goshen's 1; Maggie Meyer had three unreturnable serves, which came on consecutive points in the third set.
Meyer led all players with 16 digs and the Knights had three players lead the way with 6 kills apiece.
The Knights won 13 of the first 15 points to end the first set before it really started, but the Maple Leafs retaliated in the second set. Taking out a 4-0 Marian run at the beginning and the Knights' final two points at the end, Goshen won 21 of the middle 40 points; in addition, the Maple Leafs picked up a contact lens, which we mean literally as head coach Kourtney Crawford retrieved it from the center-court logo between points.
The spurt at the beginning of the set meant that Marian never trailed, although a kill from Eash tied the score at 6. Marian broke an 8-8 tie with a four-point run on Maddie Keerns' serve before Christina Towne and Haylee Pennington put down kills to bring GC within 14-13.
The teams traded four-point runs to close the Maple Leafs within 18-17, then single points to make it 19-18. A Haylee Pennington ace closed the gap to 23-21 before two Marian winners ended Goshen's hope of leveling the match.
Marian gave away the first point of the second set on a ball-handling error before reeling off 13 of the next 15 for a 13-3 lead. Goshen used three straight points of their own to answer long enough to trail 16-8, but Marian finished things off with two four-point runs to solidify its third-place standing in the conference.
Goshen is back in action this Saturday in a U.S. Highway 20 Cup match against Bethel University as the team seeks to avenge a three-set loss from earlier in the season. First serve is set for 3 p.m.
