Women’s Volleyball Splits Season Opener

By Jon Crossman

ANKENY, Iowa – The mental toughness that Coach Nihart has been preaching to the women's volleyball team is already paying dividends. The Eagles bounded into their season with two high-intensity matches at home with a gritty win against the Champion Christian Tigers and a well-fought, come-from-behind battle against the Kansas Christian Falcons. The two games marked the first home events for the fall sports season, and provided a pair of thrilling performances for a great crowd of students, parents, and Eagles fans.

The evenly-matched competition served as a good catalyst for the newcomers, with 6 of the 13 players on the active roster coming in as freshmen. Emma Owens and Audrey Holbert started from that freshman group in both games, serving as strong outside hitters in the Eagles' offense. Sarah Iler, Makenna Laib, Amanda Larson, and Rachel Kleczka started as well--all returning veterans who added to the structure and growing measure of this year's youthful team.

Starting the match against Champion Christian, the Eagles came out confident in their early serves and quickly got into a rhythm of getting the ball to the right places in the front row. Squeezing out the first two sets with some close chances (25-19 and 25-21), the ladies finally lost their beat in the third, giving up the set on a dynamic comeback from the Champion front row. Despite the comeback, the Eagles showed great mental toughness as the momentum shifted to the Tigers. Leading the final blow from the Eagles was Captain Rachel Kleczka, whose string of kills led to a fabulous scoring spree for Faith and carried on the theme of close calls, ending the final set with a 25-23 victory.

Looking to secure a successful home-opening win streak, the Eagles moved on to play a more familiar opponent in the Kansas Christian Falcons. The Falcons, just coming off the adrenaline of winning their game prior, crashed down hard along the net, blocking early and often and dominating with a 40% kill percentage in the first set. Reeling from the early plays of the game, the lady Eagles rallied back to balance the playing field through a steely defensive show in the second set. Makenna Laib and Morgan Stephens both sacrificed greatly for the Eagles, diving and bouncing all over the court to combine for 52 digs throughout the game. The ladies showed great mental toughness once again, battling through to a fifth set. They began their final uphill climb with four unanswered points and forced the Falcons to call a timeout and regroup. The set divulged into a back-and-forth show of serves, with each team showing mutual desperation to pull away into a comfortable lead. A string of attack errors led to the Falcons getting the upper hand, eventually ending the match at 15-13 with a well-timed block.

The Eagles are back on the home court against Union College on Tuesday, August 31, starting at 6:00 p.m.