For the first time in three full seasons of Great Midwest Athletic Conference competition, the Hillsdale College volleyball team was pushed to its absolute limits in Friday's G-MAC tournament semifinal.
Fourth-seeded Cedarville took 1-0 and 2-1 set leads and were tied 13-13 in a back-and-forth deciding fifth set to put the Chargers on the brink of their first-ever G-MAC Tournament loss in four seasons as a conference member.
But in the end, the Chargers rallied and overcame the challenge, winning an instant classic that goes down as perhaps the best match the conference has produced to in its nine-year history, 20-25, 25-15, 21-25, 25-23, 15-13, to reach its fourth-straight G-MAC tournament final.
Right from the start, the determined Yellow Jackets made it clear Hillsdale was in for a fight, jumping out to a 10-5 first set lead and pulling away to take a 1-0 advantage.
Hillsdale used a strong start of their own to reassert control in set two and tie up the match, but Cedarville once again outhustled and outhit the Chargers in set three to go up 2-1 in the match and put the Chargers on the brink of their first conference loss since 2017.
Their backs to the wall in set four, the Chargers dug deep. Sub Maddie Clark finished with five kills in the set to help the Chargers pull ahead, and senior Allyssa Van Wienen finished with two big kills in the final six points to help Hillsdale force a match-deciding fifth set.
The final set was back-and-forth, with both squads displaying excellent defense and battling for every point as evidenced by 10 ties and four lead changes. Trailing 8-7, Hillsdale got a kill from junior Karoline Shelton to tie the set at 8-all, and then, after the longest rally of the night, junior Maggie DePorre hit a big kill to the far right corner that shifted the momentum in a big way. While Cedarville would tie the match four more times after that point, the Yellow Jackets would never again take the lead.
Tied at 13 apiece, Hillsdale closed out the match with big plays by the most recent two G-MAC Players of the Year. The 2021 PoY, Shelton, gave Hillsdale the lead with her 22nd kill of the night, putting the Chargers up 14-13, and then the 2019 G-MAC PoY, Van Wienen, served an ace for match point to help the Chargers advance.
Shelton finished with a career-high 22 kills, 16 digs and two aces in the victory, Van Wienen chipped in 11 kills, two aces, a solo block and three block assists as well. DePorre finished with 10 kills and two aces of her own, Clark added seven kills in three sets, and Megan Kolp and Maizie Brown each chipped in five kills for the Chargers.
In her first full match back from an injury, setter Lindsey Mertz plyed a huge role in the win, dishing out 51 assists and adding 10 digs.
Freshman libero Alli Wiese led the Chargers defensively with 31 digs and two aces, and Audrey Riley chipped in nine digs as well.
The match was the first time Hillsdale had gone five sets against a G-MAC opponent since two five set matches against Findlay in the team's first season in the G-MAC, 2017, both lost by the Chargers.
Thanks to the victory, Hillsdale (15-1) gets a shot at its fourth-straight G-MAC tournament title in the championship game on Saturday at 5 p.m. in Dawn Tibbetts Potter Arena. Facing off against the Chargers is sixth-seeded Tiffin, who beat third-seeded Findlay and second-seeded Walsh in the previous two round and are looking to cap a Cinderella run with the program's first-ever conference tournament title. The match is a rematch of the 2019 G-MAC Tournament final, which Hillsdale won 3-1 over the Dragons to secure its third-straight crown.
Photo by Anthony Lupi