Jamestown, N.D. – Gracie Adamson and
Charlotte Lempka both set new career-highs in kills, but the University of Jamestown women's volleyball team could not ride the momentum of their set one victory over No. 19 Minnesota Duluth as the Bulldogs beat the Jimmies in four sets Friday night at Harold Newman Arena.
Jamestown falls to 16-9 overall and 9-8 in the Northern Sun. The Jimmies are now clinging to eighth place in the standings to hold the final playoff spot ahead of a huge match against Bemidji State University Saturday. The Bulldogs jumped ahead to 19-6 overall with a 12-5 conference mark to put themselves in a share of fifth place leading into the final three matches of the regular season.
The two sides split the match's first six points with
Caroline Puetz's kill part of the early scoring for the Jimmies. However, UMD pulled ahead with four straight points after this to make the score 7-3.
Puetz added another kill as the two teams were even for a while and shortly after, the Bulldogs went out in front 15-11. Right after this though, the Jimmies got kills from
Addison Ertz and
Kyleigh Schopp as part of a 6-1 run. An attack error at the end of this spurt gave the Jimmies their first lead, 17-16.
In an intense battle towards the end of the set,
Gracie Adamson put Jamestown in front 24-22, but Duluth tied it at 24-24 to force extra points. With the first set locked at 25, Adamson and Schopp teamed up for a block to bring the match to set point, then Ertz pounded down a kill to send UJ to a 27-25 set one victory.
In a service error heavy first set, UMD had a better attacking percentage at .216 (14-6-37) to Jamestown's .163 (15-8-43) with the Bulldogs also putting together 4.5 team blocks.
Puetz started of the Jimmies on the right foot in the second set with her third kill of the night for the first point. Adamson got going early in the second set with three kills early on with the two teams tied 10-10.
Puetz got another kill as the 12
th Jamestown point, but the set began to go south for the home team not long after that. Four straight UMD points brought the Bulldogs lead to 18-13, and they later got out ahead 22-15. Lempka added two more kills late, but this was not enough with Duluth evening up the match with a 25-18 set victory in the second set.
UMD had over twice as good attacking efficiency in the second set as they finished .320 (11-3-25) with Jamestown posting a .158 (14-8-38) attacking percentage. More service aces (3-1) and blocks (4-0) help Bulldogs quite a bit as well.
It was not an ideal start to the third set for Jamestown with Duluth ahead five early, 8-3. A couple of 4-0 runs from the Jimmies tied the contest at 14-14. Lempka and Adamson were taking over for UJ with five and four kills, respectively, in the set at this point.
A bit later, another four-straight point run ensued for the Jimmies with Adamson posting two more kills in this span which pushed Jamestown ahead 18-16. Late in the set, an attack error sent the third set to set point with UJ up 24-21. Unfortunately, though, the Bulldogs did not go away.
Four straight tallies from the visiting side put the Jimmies on the brink now losing 25-24.
Addison Ertz got a kill to knot the score 25 all, but then two big blocks resulted in points for the Bulldogs as UJ fell 27-25 in the third set.
Blocking was the edge in set three with UMD posting six in the set win. A slightly higher attacking percentage of .222 (13-5-36) to .162 (15-9-37) also played in the Bulldogs favor.
Adamson added to her career night with two more kills early in the fourth set which made the score 8-7 Jamestown, though five straight points from Duluth made the score 12-8. The deficit got even worse for UJ with the Bulldogs later ahead 20-13.
However, the Jimmies roared back with seven of the next eight points. Adamson had three kills during this span while Schopp took a piece out of the Duluth playbook by participating in two blocks as the lead got down to just one point for UMD with the score at 21-20. Despite this effort, Jamestown could not finish the set. The Bulldogs got four of the next five points with
Kallyn Grove's kill as the final positive result for the home team on the evening. UMD bested the Jimmies 3-1 with their 25-21 fourth set win.
Duluth beat the Jimmies .300 (14-5-30) to .237 (15-6-38) in attacking percentage in the fourth set as they hit better than UJ in all four stanzas. The Bulldogs added a service ace and both teams added three more blocks to their ledgers in the match's final set.
For the night, Adamson finished with 22 kills, a new career-high for the senior, to keep Jamestown in it. This was her second time setting a career high in three games after she put together 20 kills against Concordia University St. Paul (10/24). Lempka also pieced together a career-best number of kills with 15. The Alexandria, Minn. native is heating up at the right time now with double-digit kill numbers in four straight matches.
Puetz finished with four kills, two blocks, and two digs while
Ava Bertsch and
Kate Wiebesiek both had nice performances each with 25 set assists. On the defensive side, Schopp posted seven block assists and
Sophie Ketterling digged 16 balls.
Momoka Minamiya had a great evening as well with her 14 digs being the most since 18 against Augustana University (10/2).
The biggest hinderance to the Jimmies was 31 attacking errors, most of these due to 17.5 Duluth blocks. The Bulldogs had fewer kills but also had a better attacking percentage in the contest at .258 (52-19-128) compared to Jamestown's .179 (59-31-156). Aces (7-5) and digs (52-45) were won by UMD as well.
The Jimmies will host Bemidji State in a pivotal NSIC matchup for senior day tomorrow, October 31 at 2 p.m. in Harold Newman Arena.
