The 2015 conference season began where the 2014 conference season ended for the Hillsdale College volleyball team, and that ended up being a good thing.
After getting off to a slow start, the Chargers came back to post a 3-1 win over Lake Erie College Friday night in Painesville, Ohio.
Winners of five in a row, Hillsdale is now 7-1 overall and 1-0 in the GLIAC while the Storm falls to 3-3 and 0-1 after the result.
Lake Erie played well to open the match, winning set one 25-21, leading virtually from start to finish. But the Chargers made the proper adjustments and stormed out to a 7-1 lead in set two, halting any momentum Lake Erie had built.
The Chargers won the final three sets by scores of 25-16, 25-21 and 25-12.
Set three was the closest of the final three sets. After taking a 17-10 lead, Lake Erie came back to make the score 22-20. But three of the last four points when Hillsdale's way, securing a 2-1 lead in the match.
The Storm took a 6-3 lead to open set four, but Hillsdale completely took over from there. Four different players had two or more kills in a 14-2 run that decided the set and the match.
Freshman Kara Vyletel matched her career-high with 15 kills and easily set a career-high with 16 digs in the win. She became the first Hillsdale College player to record at least 15 kills and 15 digs in the same match since Emily Wolfert did it on Nov. 15, 2013. Vyletel's 5 service aces were not only a career-high, but a team single-match high this season.
Fellow freshman Taylor Bennett set a career-high with 21 assists, as she showed more comfort in running the offense.
Senior Marissa Owen led the offense with 24 assists, and senior Emily Wolfert had 9 kills with a .364 hitting percentage. Senior Haylee Booms hit double figures in kills for the second time in three matches, picking up 10 with a .333 hitting percentage. Senior Jenalle Beaman also set a career-high with 21 digs. She was moved to libero starting with set two, and greatly helped the team's transition game.
INSIDE THE BOX SCORE: Lake Erie hit .308 as a team in the first set, but had a combined hitting percentage of .036 in the final three sets…Hillsdale hit better than .200 in all four sets…Freshman Paige VanderWall (pictured) had a career-high 3 service aces, which were her first three of her career…Two players: Madison Russell and Leondra Barrett, had 24 of Lake Erie's 41 kills…This match was the GLIAC head coaching debut of Lake Erie's Kevin Foeman, who spent the past two seasons as an assistant coach with Hillsdale.
UP NEXT: The Chargers travel to Ashland to face the Eagles at 2:00 Saturday afternoon.
PHOTO CREDIT: Greg Vyletel