THE RUNDOWN
The Lady Patriots lost their last match of the regular season on the road to St. Edward's with a final score of 3-1. It was a win or go home match for both DBU and St. Edward's. With both teams entering this match with a 5-6 conference record the winner of the match would take the 4th place spot in the Heartland Conference and take the last spot in the Heartland Conference tournament.Â
St. Edward's got out to a small lead early in the 1st set, but DBU did a good job of staying in the set until, with DBU trailing 13-11, St. Edward's scored four points in a row to extend their lead to 17-11. St. Edward's would hold onto the lead, despite the DBU effort to comeback, and they would win the 1st set 25-18. The 2nd set ended up being the closest of the day. Neither team could hold a lead with 17 lead changes or ties in the set. The only time a team could get a lead was when St. Edward's, trailing 22-21, scored three in a row to take a 24-22 lead before going on to win the set 25-23.
The Lady Patriots would bounce back in the 3rd set. It remained close early on until a huge run by DBU gave them the lead. With DBU trailing 11-6, the Lady Patriots went on to score 12 of the next 14 points to take an 18-13 lead before going on to win the 3rd set with a score of 25-18. St. Edward's started the 4th set well and jumped out to a 6-1 lead. The Lady Patriots would cut the lead down to one or two points multiple times in the set, but St. Edward's would lead the entire way and held off any DBU comeback before winning the set 25-19 and winning the set 3-1.
THREE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW
- The DBU offense had another balanced attack today with six players reaching at least seven kills.
- Despite the loss, the Lady Patriots ended with more digs and assists than St. Edward's, and St. Edward's only had one more kill and block than DBU.
- Losing the 2nd set really hurt the Lady Patriots. This was a competitive match and if they could have split the first two sets they wouldn't have had the pressure of playing down 0-2 the rest of the way.
INSIDE THE NUMBERS
21-Â Katie Martin found the most success on offense today as she had a game-high 21 kills in today's match.
3-Â The DBU defense ended the season with multiple players getting multiple digs. Today, three players ended with at least 10 digs.
7-Â The Lady Patriots have found success in limiting their errors lately, but today they finished with seven more errors then St. Edward's.
2017 SEASON IN REVIEW
With today's loss the Lady Patriots' 2017 season is over as they finish with a 10-16 record, going 5-7 in conference play. With a 5-7 conference record they finish 5th in the Heartland Conference standings. It's been an up and down year for the Lady Patriots. They started the season going 4-3 in tournament play to open up the season and struggled to find consistent success on offense. They hit a rough stretch late in the year as they had a six-match losing streak, but finally turned things around winning four of their next five matches. Despite losing their last two matches, the offense found some consistent success, as well as, finding balance in who could earn points. This is a young team, with only one senior, so with this season being an improvement from last year and many of the girls coming back next year, they will surely be able to find success next year and get over the hump to get into the conference tournament.
