As early season matches go, a win like the one the Hillsdale College volleyball team had Saturday afternoon was pretty significant.
The Chargers played outstanding defense in earning a 3-0 win over the Ashland University Eagles at Dawn Tibbetts Potter Arena. Hillsdale is now 3-3 overall and 2-0 in the GLIAC, while the Eagles fell to 0-6 and 0-2. The Chargers won the sets by scores of 25-15, 25-22 and 25-21.
The match featured a number of long rallies, especially in the second and third sets, and Hillsdale seemed to win almost all of those points. The Chargers played loose and confident, and were very efficient on offense for the second day in a row.
Hillsdale hit .267 as a team, led by deadly attacking by juniors Haylee Booms and Jordan Denmark. Combined, they had 21 kills and just one hitting error in the match.
Booms led the offense with 11 kills and no errors, with a .550 hitting percentage. Denmark had 10 kills and a .429 hitting percentage. She was also very active defensively, with 11 digs, many of them diving attempts at well-hit balls out of bounds that helped preserve a side-out for the Chargers.
Junior Marissa Owen had another great match setting, dishing out 32 assists to go along with 10 digs. Owen again moved the ball around to a wide variety of targets, with six different players picking up 10 or more attack attempts.
Freshman libero Brittany Jandasek had a team-high 16 digs, and Booms picked up two solo blocks.