Lady Eagles Wrap up Conference Play with Victory

DUBUQUE, IA – Emmaus won their final regular season MCCC match with a 3-0 victory over the other Iowa Lady Eagles – Faith Baptist Bible College from Ankeny.

After the both teams fought through the jitters of the first few points (2-2), Emmaus was able to find their pacing and take control of the first set, and did not trail the rest of the way in the 25-16 win.

"We talked between sets how Faith would look for changes to respond to us, and they certainly delivered," commented Coach Pitman.

Indeed it was a very strong run by Faith that started set two, as aggressive serving and blocking put Emmaus in a very large hole to start the set.  A 7-1 Faith lead caused the Lady Eagles to take a time out to re-evaluate their strategy, and upon returning to the court Emmaus fought hard to knot the score at 13-13.  The teams battled point for point for the rest of the set, but with the score tied at 23 the Lady Eagles made a key kill and block to end the set (25-23).

"I was very proud of how we didn't let the scoreboard affect our play in set two," said Coach Pitman.  "We made a huge deficit for ourselves, but we were confident that we could still win.  This was a huge stride in our continued development of mentally tough play."

Emmaus adjusted their rotations in set three to see if they could get a better matchup, and they came out from the first serve on fire.  Once again the score was tied 2-2, but Emmaus would lead the rest of the set, and closed out the match with a 25-9 victory.

"We are continuing to talk about growing and the process more than the score," said Coach Pitman after the match.  "I am proud of each young lady on this team.  It is nice to be on the winning side of the scoreboard, but more importantly we are striving as a team to push ourselves, to do things the right way, and to honor the Lord as we do so."

Alli Howard had a huge night, with 10 kills, 1 ace, 7 digs, and 1 block assist.  Wynne Vandersall had 12 kills and Paige Sweeney had 8, along with 2 solo and 2 assisted blocks.  Hannah Postma had 33 assists and Savannah Petersen had 10 digs and 4 assists.

Emmaus improves to 5-0 in the MCCC, and 14-1 on the season.  The Lady Eagles held their NCCAA national ranking based on last week's play; Emmaus is currently in 6^th place in the national poll.

The Lady Eagles end their extended home stand on Friday with a match against NCAA DIII opponent Mount Mary University (Milwaukee, WI).  Match time is 7:00 pm in the Pollard Fieldhouse.