A preventable loss? Cedarville loses 3-1 to Indianapolis chasing perfection 

By Danielle Cherry 

With a 6-8 record, Cedarville walked onto the court Tuesday night hoping to turn its three-game losing streak into a win.

With No. 24 nationally ranked University of Indianapolis’14-2 record looming over Cedarville, the Jackets took the first set 21-25. then deflated in the final three: 25-12, 25-23, 25-16. 

Cedarville came out swinging, bringing the home court energy with them into their attacks. The Lady Jackets put up strong blocks, sending the ball careening back onto the Greyhounds’ side. Balls were kept up by Alivia Rutt diving to the floor and Sidney Shepherd sacrificing the set to keep the serve from dropping. 

Balls tipped over, big blocks from the left side of the court and seat-clenching digs from Cedarville all set the pace of the game early on. No matter where the ball was on the court, the Lady Jackets were storming the area to keep it from dropping.  

Rallies went on for what felt like minutes, a constant back-and-forth with a heavy net game from Cedarville. With 13 blocks, Cedarville relentlessly kept the ball on the Greyhounds’ side, no matter how many bodies hit the floor. 

The middle hitters put up a front to be reckoned with. Carly Craighead led the charge in slide-attack kills against the Greyhounds, with her teammate Kate Fourman quick to answer with a variety of specific spot kills. 

Taking the first set, Cedarville had the advantage, but it all fell apart in the second set as back-row passing shanked balls, causing Shepherd to desperately fling the ball into the air. As the back row became timid, the front row had little to work with, now relying on slower attacks that the Greyhounds easily picked up. 

“It was the tale end of energy,” said head coach Greg Smith. 

With the gap growing steadily, movements from a receiving ball were jerky and frantic — Cedarville doing everything it could to finish the second set with the Greyhounds’ 13-point lead. 

 “We were trying to push things a little bit too hard and create stuff that wasn’t there,” Smith said.  

Coming into the third, the confidence from the front row on Cedarville’s side was low, with the exception of Allie Pilat. Throughout the game, she played with intensity and intentionality in her swings. Ending the game with a .412 hitting percentage, Pilat’s 17 ball kill count jostled the Lady Jackets back into confident play.

Down two points, Cedarville was on its toes, preparing for every next ball transitioning quickly off the net ready for a hit. Even though there was a hitter underneath a set ball ,a small falter or fumble would send it into the net or out, allowing the Greyhounds to take serve. 

“We’ve got to become more mentally tough than what we are,” Smith said.  

And when it came to the final balls of the third set, Cedarville’s resilience was shattered. Having taken care of things on their side of the court, the final set moments with the Greyhounds serving were all it took to break Cedarville’s mental strength once again. 

“Its almost identical to what happened at [Ohio Dominican],” Smith said. “In that set against ODU, we had set point and didn’t finish it.” 

With the Jacket’s block having holes, and their hitting percentage dropping to 0.93 to the Greyhounds’ .238, the fourth-set pace was polar opposite to the team that led the charge in the first. 

A comeback was possible, the tight gap in the third being the turning point for the Jackets, but the opportunity was never realized and the fourth set ended 25-16.

“In a sense we were trying to be too perfect,” Smith said. “We didn’t have to be perfect, we just had to be good.”

With so many quick decisions and tiny details that can be tampered with, it’s hard to keep up with all the things that could go wrong in a rally. Attention is split in so many places leading to a trail of small errors to fix. 

That is what happened to the Lady Jackets, the tiny errors like a split-second to late swing, became hyperfixations leading to bigger breakdowns in the passing and hitting. With this being their third loss in a row, the Jackets are on the defensive to improve on their 4-2 GMAC record. 

There is a lot that goes into the sport of volleyball, but above all it’s a mental sport, with the competition of play and energy to do so coming right from the brain. With their match against Thomas More coming up on October 3 to a Homecoming crowd, the Jackets hope to switch that competitive mindset into overdrive. 

Danielle Cherry is a junior communication major and is Assistant editor for A&E and passionate writer for Sports. She is a Missionary Kid from Germany and wonders where they got a Hawaiian shirt big enough to fit Stinger.