St. Louis, Neb. – The Nebraska Wesleyan volleyball team went 1-3 over the weekend at the Bear Classic hosted by Washington University in St. Louis, Mo. NWU dropped two matches on Friday then recorded a 3-1 victory over MacMurray on Saturday before ending the classic with a five set loss to Rose Hulman.
NWU is now 3-5 overall on the season after playing in a pair of tournaments. They begin American Rivers Conference play on Thursday (Sept. 13) in the home opener versus Buena Vista.
In the first match of the day, the Prairie Wolves fell 3-0 to undefeated Birmingham Southern. BSU won in scores of 25-23, 25-19, 25-22 to improve to 5-0 on the year. NWU was led by
Nicole Gonzales who had seven kills in the match. As a team, the Prairie Wolves hit .095 with 18 attack errors. They also had eight reception errors and four service errors.
Next up for the Prairie Wolves was the host school Washington University. Wash U., ranked #19 in NCAA III, held NWU to just a .016 hitting percentage while pounding out 44 kills of their own at a clip of .337. NWU finished the match with 23 kills, led by
Kierra Harder with seven.
On Saturday afternoon, the Prairie Wolves got their lone win of the weekend with a 3-1 win over MacMurray in scores of 25-18, 14-25, 25-18. 25-18. NWU had 50 kills in the victory with two players reaching double digits.
Hannah Bellinghausen had a team-high 13 kills to lead the team, followed by
Karrie Sestak with 10.
Cassidy Plooster dished out 38 assists to top all players.
Lizzie Saale and
Cera Craven both had 13 digs to lead the team.
The final match of the weekend was a 5-set thriller that NWU came up just short to Rose Hulman. NWU won the first set 25-15, then dropped set two 17-25 before bouncing back in set three winning 25-14. Rose-Hulman won the next two sets 25-21, 15-9 to earn the victory.
Hannah Bellinghausen had a huge match to lead the Prairie Wolves. She finished with 21 kills and a .354 hitting percentage.
Kierra Harder was one of two NWU players to have a double-double posting 16 kills and 23 digs.
Cassidy Plooster also had a double-double with 47 assists and 11 digs.
Lizzie Saale led the team with 24 digs.
