Offensive woes continued to haunt the PCC volleyball team in its conference opener against Seward County on Wednesday. After winning the first set 25-22, the Beavers dropped the next three 25-15, 25-16, 25-13. Pratt hit only .060 for the night.
In the first set it looked like the Beavers would make good on their preseason top-of-the-conference billing. Pratt fell behind 14-11 but came back to take a 17-16 lead. The Beavers extended that to 23-17 before allowing Seward to regain some momentum with several hitting errors and two service errors.
In the second set, Pratt tied the game at 13, but then committed nine errors to hand the game to Seward. In the third set, the Beavers dug a hole for themselves at 9-1, which held for the remainder of the set. The fourth set was a reprise of the third.
For a while, it looked like Pratt’s middle attack would get going, as Natali Jones had five consecutive kills in the third set. However she failed to tally a kill in seven attempts in the fourth set. Jones finished the match with eight kills as did Nohely Perez. Jones hit .222 on the night, with Perez at only .120.
Sara Aloisio, the other middle, had four kills and hit .500, with right-side hitter Taelir Winkel adding five kills while hitting .440.
Emily Scheck delivered 16 assists, with Sam Reed adding 15. Tori Provencio led the defense with 13 digs, and Bailey rush added nine.
“We’re still struggling with our passing game, and we need to find some consistency on the outside,” said head coach Patrick Hall. “We’ll get a chance to test ourselves again this weekend in Texas, where we’ll face three top-20 ranked teams. This team has a lot of promise, but needs to accept a pretty steep learning curve to make the most of our tough early-season schedule.”
