Blue Knights Struggle In First Weekend
North Canton, Ohio—The Urbana University volleyball team wasn’t expecting to come home winless from the Malone College Volleyball Invitational.  The Blue Knights struggled throughout the weekend and the growing pains of a young team were noticeable. Urbana had many chances in a five game match with West Liberty State (25-30, 30-14, 27-30, 30-25, 14-16) but mental mistakes at crucial times along with serving errors caused the loss. The Blue Knights played tough and competed with Freed-Hardman University (26-30, 12-30, 29-31), who received votes in the national top 25, but still the same struggles caused them to drop another match on Friday evening.

On day two of the tournament, the Blue Knights still found themselves trying to gel with so many new faces on the floor as the dropped matches to Indiana Wesleyan University (13-30, 28-30, 12-30) and host Malone College (28-30, 25-30, 17-30). Coach Jeremy Wise believes that there were positives to be found in the weekend. “Our squad competed strongly and never gave up. Once we learn to control our mental mistakes and crucial point errors, our squad will start to come into its own.” With so many new players, the coaching staff is working to find a line-up that works the best and once that lineup is in place and the team finds their identity, Wise looks for the team to catch fire.

Sophomore transfer Heather Powers led the offensive attack with 51 kills while freshman setters Audree Castle and Stevie Jacob added 62 and 31 assists, respectively.  Powers was named to the Malone College Invitational All-Tournament team. On the defensive side, junior libero Maria Wuebker had 79 digs while senior Lisa Schulte dug up 56 balls and also had 19 kills.