SIOUX CITY, Iowa – For the second straight match, it was a battle of Warriors as Midland University took on Westmont College. In the opening match of Pool C at the 2022 NAIA Women’s Volleyball National Championship. Midland took the opening set but fell to Westmont in four sets, 25-22, 19-25, 19-25, 20-25. The loss drops Midland to 26-5 on the season while Westmont improves to 24-6.
Westmont worked their way out to a 4-1 lead before Midland settled in and battled back to a 6-6 tie. Westmont held their own warding off MU and looked poised to take the first set, leading 22-20. Midland battled back once more, tying the game at 22-22, and ended in the set on a five-point run to win 25-20.
Set two saw Westmont turn a 5-1 advantage into a 13-7 lead, forcing Midland to utilize both timeouts. Coming out of their second huddle, the Warriors went on an 8-2 run to pull even. Westmont responded with a 4-0 run and held the Warriors at arm’s length the rest of the set, winning 25-19.
In the third, the teams were in a dogfight as they traded points early on. There were six ties up to 14-14. That’s when Westmont scored back-to-back points to take advantage they wouldn’t give up. They used a 4-0 run to make it 22-16 and sealed the win 25-19.
Midland looked stunned to start the fourth as Westmont rattled off eight straight points to seize control. The Warriors never found their footing and attempted a rally but the deficit was too much to overcome as they fell 25-20.
Westmont outhit the Warriors .250 to .087 on the attack. Midland had one of their highest error matches with 30 against just 44 kills.
Leading the team in kills for MU were Taliyah Flores and Abbey Ringler with 12 each. Lauryn Samuelson came on with 7 which was matched by Addisyn Mosier.
Hope Leimbach had 37 assists on the day to go with 14 digs defensively. Delanie Vallinch led the way with 17 digs. Also reaching double-digit digs were Kailyn Scott with 12 and Flores with 10.
At the net, Midland had 13 total blocks. Ringler and Flores each had a hand in on six, while Samuelson had four.
“It was a disappointing outcome for our team today,” said head coach Paul Giesselmann after the match. “It was uncharacteristic the way we played at times. Normally we’ve been a great defensive team this year and today, for whatever reason, we just were not very good defensively. We didn’t block well in the front row. Balls in the back row that we normally pick up all year, we were just out of position. You’ve got to give Westmont credit. They put a lot of pressure on us with their right-side attack and their middles. We just couldn’t match it. They did a better job of being lower error than we did. We got good production today out of Lauryn and Abbey. We just couldn’t get anything from our pin positions.”
Midland (26-5) will continue pool play on Friday when they face Bellevue (27-7). The Warriors and Bruins will square off inside the Tyson Events Center at 1:00 p.m. Midland will need Bellevue to defeat Westmont on Thursday in order for them to force a tie-breaker for the pool championship.
