Volleyball Drops Home Opener to Grizzlies in Four

Saturday, September 17

Fort Wayne, Ind.

7:00 PM

Purdue Fort Wayne

6-5, 0-1Summit

Oakland

6-4, 1-0Summit

Oakland

IPFW

Megan Wiler had a career-high seven blocks in IPFW's four-set loss to Oakland

Volleyball Drops Home Opener to Grizzlies in Four

9/17/2011 9:27:00 PM | Women's Volleyball

Box Score

BOX SCORE | PHOTO GALLERY

Fort Wayne, IN - The IPFW Mastodons dropped their Summit League and home opener on Saturday evening at the newly renovated Gates Sports Center, falling to the Grizzlies of Oakland in four sets, 25-16, 26-24, 17-25, 25-23.

Jessie Manwaring had a match- and career-high 16 kills in the loss, while Emily Spencer added 11. Tessa McGill, who was honored in before the match for her reaching the 1,000-dig milestone earlier in the year, had a match-high 17 digs, while Spencer added 14 for her eighth double-double of the season.

Megan Wiler had seven blocks for the Mastodons, who totaled 10 as a team, while Spencer and Manwaring each added three apiece. Megan Steenhuysen dished out 38 assists, with Jen Milligan adding a pair of service aces.

The first set opened in IPFW's favor, as the Mastodons scored five of the first seven points to jump ahead 5-2 early in the set, before the Grizzlies, behind the serving of Brittany Holbrook, scored five straight points to lead 7-5. The Mastodons fought back, taking a two-point, 13-11 lead after a Spencer kill, forcing Oakland into a timeout. Following the break, the Grizzlies went on a tear, out-scoring the Mastodons 14-3 the rest of the way, including the final eight points of the frame to take the opener 25-16.

The second set was was back-and-forth the entire way and featured a dozen ties and nine lead changes. The biggest lead by either team in the frame was a 19-15 IPFW advantage after a Manwaring kill. Oakland fought back to tie the set at 20, and the teams were tied at 22, 23, and 24 before the Grizzlies scored back-to-back points to claim set two 26-24.

The Mastodons came out of the ten-minute intermission with a vengeance, hitting .296 in the set after heading into the break hitting just .054. Oakland took the early lead in the frame, leading 3-1; however, IPFW used a series of short runs, while forcing the Grizzlies to side out 72 percent of the time. The 'Dons led by as many as nine at 24-15 in the 25-17 IPFW third-set win.

IPFW seemed to carry over the momentum from the third set into the fourth, pulling away to a 19-14 lead late in the frame; however, the Grizzlies fought back, and behind the serving of Ashley Nevelle scored seven consecutive points to turn a 20-15 deficit into a 22-21 advantage. The Mastodons fought back, tying the set at 22, but the late momentum was too much to overcome in the 25-23 fourth-set loss.

Meghan Bray led three Oakland players in double-figure kills with 15, as Holbrook had 12 and Katie Horling 10. Nevelle dished out a match-high 40 assists, while picking up a team-high 14 digs, as Jenna Lange had seven blocks to tie for the match high.

The Mastodons return to action on Tuesday, September 20 when the squad travels to Indianapolis to take on the Jaguars of IUPUI in a mid-week league game, slated to begin at 7:00 PM.

~Dons~