GOSHEN, Ind. — Madison Coles picked up a career-high 6 blocks Friday night and Naomi Willis added a double-double in less than two sets, but the Goshen College women's volleyball team reached the halfway point of the Crossroads League season on the wrong foot in a four-set loss to Huntington University at Ruth Gunden Gymnasium.
Willis racked up 24 assists to go with her team-high 11 digs while Coles picked up one block for each finger for the first time since her sophomore year, then added another for the opposite hand as the Maple Leafs lost 25-19, 24-26, 25-15, 25-21.
Tya Bynum and Lindsay Ingenito each hit double digits in kills for the Foresters (8-10, 3-6), picking up 15 and 11 respectively. Morgan Robrock led all players with 40 assists and Hannah Maier recorded 21 digs. Bynum and Ingenito each added a quartet of blocks.
HU hit at least .111 with 10 or more kills in all four sets; Goshen (3-17, 0-9) had the best-hitting set of the match, with 16 kills on 31 swings for a .355 percentage, in its second-set win, but finished with 23 kills against 21 errors in the other three sets.
Neither team broke contact with the other through much of the first set, with the first three-point lead coming on a 4-1 Forester lead to go up 19-16 on a Kortney Grimm winner. Unfortunately for Goshen, that was quickly followed by a four-point lead, then by three sets of traded points and three Forester kills to wrap up the set.
GC went up 4-1 in the second set, getting two Gwyn Bellamy kills and a Sadie Brenneman ace, before falling behind 12-9. The Leafs would swing the momentum back in the other direction with a 7-1 spurt, which included three blocks from Coles and two from Beaver, to pull ahead 16-13.
Huntington promptly tied the score at 17, allowed Goshen to go up 20-17, and then re-leveled at 20. A pair of Beaver kills gave GC its first two set points and Emma Dippon's winner wrapped up the set.
After a 5-5 start to the third set, Huntington ripped off runs of six and seven points to go up as many as 13 . A run on Brenneman's serve got the Maple Leafs back within shouting distance at 23-15 before Bynum's kill earned a Forester sideout and Ingenito's block sealed the set.
The fourth set had neither the point-by-point tension of the first set nor the runs of the middle two, but swung back and forth between the sides with Goshen leading early, Huntington taking over to go up 10-6 and two Maple Leaf aces sparking an 18-15 lead. Huntington countered that with five of the next six points, though, and a 4-0 run turned a 20-all tie into match point. After a service error put the ball in Goshen's court, Ingenito's kill wrapped up the match.
Goshen starts the second half of the league slate off with the same pair of ranked opponents that opened the season, but this time on the road: the Maple Leafs will visit eighth-ranked Marian at 5 p.m. Saturday and 22nd-ranked Bethel at 7 p.m. Wednesday.
