GOSHEN, Ind. — Emily Lynch put down a match-high 11 kills and Gwyn Bellamy added a career-high 10 Wednesday night as the Goshen College women's volleyball team took Grace College to four tense sets before losing a Crossroads League match in Ruth Gunden Gymnasium.
The Maple Leafs hit a season-best .400 with 12 kills and 2 errors in their second-set win, then added on with 14 kills in the final set, but went down 25-22, 20-25, 25-13, 25-19.
Grace (7-9, 2-6) got 9 kills from Jenna Mueller and 8 kills and 3 blocks from Katie Swanson. Alisha Leffring led all players with 5 blocks, but Goshen outblocked Grace 6-1 in the last three stanzas after the Lancers had all 5 net stoppages in the first set.
Sadie Brenneman posted a match-high 25 digs for the Maple Leafs (3-16, 0-8), who also got 10 from Bellamy for a double-double. Naomi Willis led all players with 21 assists.
Goshen opened a 6-2 lead in the first set before coming back to earth with a 6-1 Lancer run that included two Cassadi Colbert kills. The teams traded four-point runs in the middle of the set and ended up tied six times between 15-all and 22-all. Leffring added a kill and a block in the last three points as the visitors took the first set.
The second set had eight ties in the first 13 chances as well before Goshen ran off a 3-point lead on back-to-back errors. Grace came back to within one at 20-19 on a Katie Swanson kill, but Goshen leveled the match with two Bellamy winners and a kill and a block from Lynch in their final 5-1 run.
The visitors jumped ahead early in the third set behind a 4-point run on Anna Frey's serve, going up 8-4, then reeling off 7 straight points with 4 kills and 2 aces to go up 16-6. To Goshen's credit, the Maple Leafs bounced back with a 5-1 run of their own, but Grace won eight of the last 10 rallies to go up two sets to one.
A six-point Lancer run in the fourth set turned an 8-6 deficit into a 12-8 lead and set the tone for the rest of the match; while there was only one three-point run the rest of the way, Goshen's hole meant that trading points would not be enough. Eight Goshen players contributed to the team's 14 kills in that set.
Goshen returns to the court on Friday for the middle match of its set of three in four days. The Maple Leafs will play Huntington at 7 p.m. in Ruth Gunden Gymnasium in the match that also marks the midpoint of the Crossroads League season.
