MADISON, Wis. – The Edgewood College volleyball team had its season come to a heartbreaking end Saturday night in the NACC Tournament championship match to the second-seeded Dominican Stars. The Eagles were up two sets to none but then fell in three back-and-forth sets to end the year at 24-10 overall.
Facing the Stars in the championship match for the third-straight season and for the fourth time in the last five, Edgewood College ran out to 25-21 and 25-18 wins to go up 2-0. Dominican squeaked out a 26-24 win in set three and hit .250 in set four to take it 25-15. The Eagles were down 10-3 in the deciding set but clawed back to within one point at 12-11 but couldn't complete the improbable comeback.
An Eagles attacking error put the Eagles down two at 13-11 in the final set but Renee Meister—who finished with nine kills on the night—forced a Dominican timeout after Haley Schwenn set her up for a kill over the middle. The Eagles returned from the timeout with a service error before Christina Wilson—the NACC Co-Player of the Year—recorded a kill to give the Stars the 15-12 win.
The two teams combined for a whopping 244 digs (125 for Dominican, 119 for Edgewood College) during a match in which senior defensive specialist Rachel Tesch recorded a career-high 43, which is just three shy of the single-match school record.
The Edgewood College defense was key in the first two sets, as the Eagles posted six team blocks and held the Stars to attack percentages lower than .050 in each. The Eagles were only able to muster two more blocks the rest of the way as the Stars made adjustments and slowly erased the two-set deficit.
The end of the third set proved to be just as close as the final set, as the Eagles were down 24-20 before making a run that could have sealed a sweep. A Savannah Koester kill, two Dominican attack errors and an Elizabeth Evans kill evened things up at 24 but the Stars would score two-straight to extend the match.
Evans and Emily Chaussee led the Eagles with 11 kills apiece while Koester, Jordan Winkler and Meister all finished with nine. Chaussee and Haley Schwenn both posted double-doubles on the night, as Chaussee had 22 digs and Schwenn racked up 26 assists and 16 digs.
Head coach Paul Schlomer and the rest of the Eagles wound up with the sixth-most wins in a single season in school history and reached the 20-win mark for the fifth-straight year. The match on Saturday marked the end of Tesch's, Winkler's and Kaitlyn Rabel's careers.
