WHEATON, Ill. -- The Augustana Vikings women's volleyball team defeated the Wheaton Thunder on the road on Wednesday to begin the CCIW schedule, winning by a score of 3-1 (25-21, 23-25, 25-14, 25-19) from inside King Arena.
Augie grabbed five of the first six points of the opening set and grew their lead to as many as seven at 12-5 before a rally from the Thunder not only tied the game, but gave the home team a two-point advantage at 18-16. Trailing by two, the Vikings responded to the current 11-3 Wheaton run with four straight scores to flip the two-point margin in their favor. The home team was unable to catch up as Augie sealed up the set with four of the final five points, seeing two kills from
Caroline Hurst to go along with two attack errors from Wheaton down the stretch.
The Thunder responded with a hard-fought 25-23 win to even the match at 1-1, but Augustana bounced back with the first seven points of the third set en route to an 11-point win to reclaim the match lead. Wheaton cut the game to six at point after Augusta grew their lead to 10, but the Vikings halted any comeback threat with seven of the final nine points scored.
In set four, Wheaton grabbed the early lead at 5-2, but eventually found themselves tied with Augie at eight points apiece. From there, the Vikings broke away, using a 10-3 scoring run to go up 18-11. The Thunder did not go down quietly, getting as close as five on two separate occasions, but an attack error from the home team ended their momentum, as well as the match.
The Vikings out-hit the Thunder 56 kills to 45, assisting on 51 of those.
Amelie Baehr-Ross tallied a career-best 44 assists, good for 11 per game.
Emily Schipper led the offensive attack with 17 kills and a .300 hitting percentage, while
Jaden Julius also grabbed double-digit kills with 11.
Grace Vranicar anchored the defensive efforts with 20 digs, making it the third straight match she has eclipsed 20 or more digs.
Rachel Galluzzo also added 14 digs.
With the win, Augie improves to 6-3 overall and is now 1-0 in conference play. The team will step back outside of CCIW action this upcoming weekend when they play host to the Viking Classic September 16-17. The Vikings will play Blackburn and Monmouth Friday night at 5:00 and 7:30 p.m.
