CSR (Volleyball advances to play Hope in regional semis)

CALVIN SPORTS REPORT FOR THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8TH

VOLLEYBALL

Grand Rapids*The Calvin volleyball team advanced to the regional semi-finals in the NCAA III Tournament with a three set victory over Nazareth College on Thursday night. The Knights will play rival Hope College who defeated Ohio Northern earlier in the day to advance. Calvin won in dominating fashion in beating the Golden Flyers 30-12, 30-24, and 30-6. Calvin improved its record to 33-1 and won for the 24th straight time; the Knights also remained undefeated at home this season improving to 13-0. Nazareth ended its season with a record of 17-21.

In game one, Calvin jumped out to a 10-4 lead on the strength of two kills from junior Molly Krikke (Greenwich, OH) and eventually built an insurmountable lead at 26-10 when Krikke had two consecutive kills followed by a service ace from senior Kristen Kalb (Stow, OH).

Game two started out the same way for Calvin as they jumped on the Golden Flyers and built a lead of 24-14 after Kalb and senior Lorilyn Vogel (Orange City, IA) each had a kill. But the Golden Flyers came back to get within three points at 27-24 before Calvin used two kills from Kalb to seal the game.

Game three was all Calvin as the Knights bolted out to a 10-1 lead with three kills from Krikke and a service ace from freshman Kelsey Sears (Traverse City, MI). Calvin would not relent this time as they drove the score to 24-5 with a ten point run before finishing the match with a six point run.

For the match, Calvin was led by Kalb who had 15 kills to go with seven digs. Krikke was also in double-digits with 12 kills; as were Vogel and senior Katy Luimes (Caledonia, ON) with 11 and 10 kills respectively. Sophomore setter Katie Zondervan (Lakewood, CA) led the team in assists as she dished out 41 for the match to go with a team high 11 digs, tied with sophomore libero Lauran DeGroot (Tulare, CA). The Knights finished with a team hitting percentage of .451 and held Nazareth to a negative percentage.

Tomorrow’s match will be the fourth of the season between Calvin and Hope as Calvin has won the previous three times including a dramatic five set victory last Saturday in the MIAA Tournament Championship. Hope defeated Ohio Northern in four sets Thursday afternoon. The winner will then face the winner of the other Regional Semi-Final between Wittenberg and Hiram on Saturday for the right to advance to the elite eight.

Wittenberg and Hiram will start play at 4:30pm tomorrow afternoon while Calvin and Hope will begin at 7:00pm in the Calvin Field house.

Jeff Febus
Sports Information Director
Calvin College
(616) 526-6169 Office
(616) 526-8551 Fax
Received on Thu Nov 9 22:51:58 2006