The Gannon University women’s volleyball team participated in the Wisconsin Parkside Tournament in Kenosha, Wis., Saturday. The team returned with a double loss to both the Upper Iowa Peacocks and the 19th ranked Indianapolis Greyhounds.
The Knights started off the tournament with a five-set match against Upper Iowa. Freshman Hannah Kren led the team in this game with 18 kills and 17 digs. Another standout player in this game was junior Megan Wendel,who had 40 assists.
The first set of the match was taken by the Peacocks with a score of 18-25, but the Knights bounced back in the second set with a score of 25-23. The rest of the game followed suit with scores of 18-25, 25-23, and the Peacocks managed to push out the win in the final match with a score of 11 to 15.
The next game the Knights participated in was against the nationally ranked Indianapolis Greyhounds in a three-set match. Kren stood out again with 10 kills and 8 digs; however, it wasn’t enough to claim a win. The Knights battled through the set match with scores of 18-25, 13-25 and 21-25.
After the completion of this tournament, the Knights have an overall record of 2-2.
Coach Matt Darling said he is not too worried at this point; the team still has a week of practice before conference play begins.
“We have the talent to do better than we’re doing, and now it is my job to find out how to get something more out of that talent,” Darling said.
The team will continue working hard and will not let the outcome of one tournament affect its attitude toward the rest of the season. Darling also said he will be working hard on new strategies and reviewing what went wrong at the Wisconsin tournament.
“It’s a team problem, really, and most of the responsibility comes to me to figure out what we can do to win,” Darling said.
After the weekend’s tournament, the next time the Knights will take the court will be Friday, during the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Mountain West Crossover hosted at the Hammermill Center.
The Knights will be taking on Notre Dame in the second match of the day at 4:30 p.m.
KRISTEN MARINI
