The Hillsdale College volleyball team opened up Dawn Tibbetts Potter Arena for 2023 with a dominant sweep of visiting Ursuline to kick off Great Midwest Athletic Conference play.
Playing at home for the first time this season, the Chargers had a near-perfect first two sets on the attack to jump out to a dominant lead, then brought things home with a strong third set to take the match over the Arrows, 25-12, 25-9, 25-16.
Hillsdale put up 24 kills in the first two sets against just two attack errors, hitting a combined .458 across those sets to seize control. The Chargers used strong offensive play to take big early leads in all three sets -- 13-4 in set one, 8-2 in set two and 7-0 in set three -- and never let go of that control, rolling to victories in all three.
For the match, Hillsdale finished with 37 kills and a .360 hitting percentage, spreading out the offense among several players. Junior middle hitter Maizie Brown led the Chargers with eight kills and a .700 hitting percentage, as well as one solo block and four block assists on the night, while Emory Braswell chipped in eight kills as well. Marilyn Popplewell finished with six kills and seven digs as well for the Chargers, hitting .357 on the night. Eleven different Chargers recorded kills in the match as Hillsdale was able to get many of its young players playing time.
Alli Wiese led the Chargers defensively with 18 digs, and senior Audrey Riley chipped in two service assists. All three of Hillsdale's setters saw playing time in the match, with junior Lauren Passaliga leading the way with 21 assists, as well as three kills and two block assists. Freshman Greta Wise added two block assists as well for Hillsdale.
A notable occurrence in the match was the first replay review in the history Dawn Tibbetts Potter Arena, as head coach Chris Gravel made use of the new replay system installed for this season to challenge a call of no touch on an attack by Hillsdale's Lauren Passaglia in the second set. Hillsdale won the challenge, as it was ruled the ball was touched off the block on review, and the point was reversed to make it 19-6 Chargers.
Hillsdale (7-2, 1-0 G-MAC), will look to pick up a second conference win on Saturday when it welcomes Lake Erie to Dawn Tibbetts Potter Arena for a 1 p.m. match. Lake Erie enters at 1-8 on the season but nearly upset a Northwood team expected to be a contender in the North Division in a five-set thriller on Friday night and will look to push the Chargers in their matchup as well.
Photo by Hope Canlas