BLOOMINGTON, Ill. -- The Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology volleyball team dropped a hard fought five-set decision to Monmouth College and fell in four sets to St. Xavier University on Saturday at the Illinois Wesleyan Invitational.
Monmouth rallied from an early deficit to top the Fightin' Engineers 16-25, 26-24, 25-20, 23-25, 15-9. St. Xavier and Rose-Hulman split the first two sets 25-19 and 21-25, before the Engineers fell 25-18, 25-16 in the final two sets.
Against Monmouth, sophomore Morgan Dreyer led the effort with a triple-double of 15 kills, 12 digs and added 11 assists. Junior Sarah Jensen added a match high 32 assists. senior Briana Harvey contributed 10 kills, while freshman Becca Poppel and sophomore Emily McLendon provided nine and eight kills, respectively.
Freshman Mackenzie Gossard provided support with five service aces in Saturday's opener. Freshman Gabi Razma had 20 digs, and McLendon paced the blocking effort with one solo and four block assists.
In the nightcap against St. Xavier, Harvey had a match-high 11 kills. Dreyer and Jensen paced the assist leaders with 15 and 14, respectively.
Razma paced a balanced effort with 14 digs. Jensen and Harvey provided 10 digs each. Dreyer, Gossard and McLendon also had three total blocks.
Rose-Hulman returns to action with the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference opener at Mount St. Joseph next weekend.
