The Tiffin University volleyball team (10-11, 4-6 G-MAC) dropped a very tight contest to Walsh in four sets (22-25, 21-25, 29-27, 18-25) Friday evening inside the Gillmor Center.
The tightly contested match began in set one with eight ties and five lead changes. Walsh took advantage of three TU miscues to take a 5-2 lead. Trailing 11-6, the Dragons won seven in a row fueled by kills from both Kenedi Goon and Josie Reinhart. Walsh regained the lead by winning six of the next seven to take an 18-16 lead. A kill by Taylor Petersen tied it at 20 but the Cavaliers would go on to win five of the final seven points to take set one.
Set two featured even more ties and lead changes with 10 and six, respectively. The two teams traded runs to begin the set that ended with Walsh holding a slight 7-6 lead. Tiffin regained the lead 15-14 on back-to-back kills by Goon and Olivia Karhoff. Walsh took the lead back 19-16 by winning five of the next six with all five points coming from the offensive end on kills. TU climbed back to within three on back-to-back kills from Karhoff and Kaylee Freund, but the Cavaliers won the set on a service error by Reinhart.
Set three was the set that was closely contested the most. The two teams relentlessly traded blows which led to 22 ties during the set. Both teams held leads of three but each time their opponent responded. The Dragons faced two match points and eventually broke through late by winning the final three points. Trailing 27-26, Walsh gave Tiffin life on a service error and TU took advantage and got a kill from Freund while a service ace from Reinhart kept the Dragons alive to prolong the match.
Walsh quickly regained momentum and started set four by winning the first seven points and 10 of the first 13. The Dragons slowly got back in it and cut the deficit to four a few times, but the slow start proved costly as they were unable to get any closer than four.
Karhoff had a big night offensively and led the way with 14 kills while Goon and Freund both finished in double digits as well with 11 and 10.
Addison Conti set the attackers up for success and finished with a team-high 30 assists. Maggie Pavlansky added 19 assists and Diana Heitkamp ended with 14.
Heitkamp led the way in digs with 21 while Karhoff and Reinhart each finished with 14.
Walsh had a good hitting night and finished with a hitting percentage of .249 compared to TU's percentage of .169.
The Dragons host Malone tomorrow, November 2 at 1 p.m. for Senior Day in what is their final home match of the regular season.
