KINGSVILLE, Texas – Colorado State University Pueblo women's volleyball continued play here Saturday morning in the Texas A&M-Kingsville Invitational with a hard-fought 3-0 setback to Quincy University at the Steinke Center on the TAMUK campus.
With the loss, the ThunderWolves fall to 0-3 to open the 2023 season, while Quincy, who received votes in the AVCA/Taraflex Preseason Division II Coaches' Poll, improved to 3-0 on the year. The Pack will close out the two-day event with a 1:30 p.m. MT match against Ouachita Baptist.
For the third straight match, the Pack offense was led by sophomore outside hitter Sadie Scoville (Pleasant Grove, Utah/Pleasant Grove), who recorded 10 kills and hit a .296. In addition to Scoville, redshirt sophomore outside hitter Payton Van Veen (Springfield, Mo./Washburn) added eight kills and five blocks, while sophomore opposite side hitter Kendall Harrington (San Antonio, Texas/Tom C. Clark) had seven kills and hit .357.
Defensively, the Pack outblocked the Hawks, 10-3 as along with Van Veen's five blocks, junior middle blocker Josey Nunn (Kingwood, Texas/Porter) also had five blocks and redshirt sophomore middle blocker Golden Finch (Albuquerque, N.M./Cal State Bakersfield) had three block assists.
Junior libero Brooklyn Casey (Peoria, Ariz./Scottsdale CC) had a team-high 11 digs and the Pack also had six aces with redshirt junior setter Grace Jansen (South Jordan, Utah/Jordan) leading the way with three.
Quincy, who won 28 matches a season ago and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Midwest Regional, was paced offensively by Emma Wijnbergen, who had 16 kills and hit. 387, while Susanna Beretti added 11 kills, nine digs and hit .348 and Alice Pavan had nine kills and hit .750. Beretti also added five of QU's eight aces and Brianna Merkel had a double-double of 37 assists and 12 digs.
For the match, the Pack hit just .190 as a team and recorded just 32 kills, while QU hit .343 for the match and recorded 48 kills.
Set 1: The opening set was competitive from the start as it featured eight ties and both teams hit over .300 for the set with the Pack hitting .303 and QU hitting .308. The Hawks jumped out to a 16-11 lead midway through the set, but the Pack would respond with a 9-4 run keyed by two kills by a Scoville, an ace from Jansen and a block assist by Harrington and Nunn to tie the set at 20-all. The Hawks would use back-to-back kills to retake the lead at 22-20, but once again, the Pack responded with kills from Nunn and senior opposite side hitter Bailey Combs (Fresno, Calif./Central Oklahoma) to retie things at 22. The teams would then trade the next four points to tie things at 24 when the Hawks used two straight kills from Beretti to cap the 26-24 set win. Beretti and Wijnbergen combined for 11 kills in the set for QU, while Scoville had five kills.
Set 2: The Pack opened the second set by scoring the first four points and led by as much as 13-7 when the Hawks responded with a 16-4 run to turn that six point deficit into a 23-17 lead. Van Veen would then slam home three straight kills and Combs also had a kill to pull the Pack within 23-21, but the Hawks would close out the set with a kill and an attack error by Casey to seal its 25-21 win. In the set, the Pack hit just .156, while QU hit .387 and had three aces and 14 kills, including six by Wijnberger.
Set 3: The third set belonged to Quincy as they hit .345 and held the Pack to an .091 attack percentage. QU jumped out to a 14-6 lead in the third set and led 20-9 when the Pack responded with a 5-0 run to pull within 20-14. The run began with a Van Veen kill and was capped by a Casey ace. That would be as close as the Pack would get as QU would close out the set by scoring five of the final seven points to seal it 25-16 win.
