Volleyball Falls Twice at North Central Invite

Tournament continues Saturday

by Nathan Baliva

MONMOUTH, Ill. (09/08/2023) — The Monmouth College volleyball team lost both of their matches at the North Central Invitational on Friday. The Fighting Scots fell 25-17, 25-11, 25-11 to Nebraska Wesleyan and 25-20, 25-14 21-25, 25-21 to Greenville University.

In the first match, the first set had five ties and four lead changes before NWU pulled away for the 25-20 win. They led wire-to-wire in the second set and the final set featured four ties and two lead changes. Layne Wright (Davenport, Iowa) led the Scots with 10 kills while Amanda Dybal (Apex, North Carolina) had eight. Paige Bergschneider (Alexander, Illinois) had 24 assists and six digs. Savannah Robinson (Delavan, Illinois) had seven digs while Wright had eight. Kenzie Russell (Morton, Illinois) had an ace for the Scots while both Alana Robertson (Mapleton, Illinois) and CeCe Palladino (Volo Illinois) had two block assists.

In the second match, Greenville took the first two sets with three lead changes and four ties in each set. The Scots battled back to take the third set with seven ties and three lead changes but the Tigers finished off the match with two lead changes in the fourth set.

Dybal and Russell both had 11 kills against Greenville while Zoe Nizzia (Pekin, Illinois) and Delaney Schiedenhelm (New Berlin, Illinois) both added six. Bergschneider and Robertson both had 22 assists and Wright led the team with 10 digs. Ana Iatauro (Sao Paulo, Brazil) had nine digs while Robertson had five block assists. Both Bergschneider and Nizzia had aces.

MONMOUTH MOMENTS: Monmouth and Greenville will meet again in Glennie Gym on Friday, Oct. 6 for Alumni Night and Homecoming Weekend. Wright has a team-leading 73 kills on the season. The Scots played 13 players in the Greenville match. The Scots will face host North Central on Saturday at 4 p.m. The Cardinals are among the teams receiving votes in the AVCA Coaches D3 poll this week. Next weekend the Scots head to Dubuque, Iowa for four matches in the Loras Invitational.