Lexington, Ky. – The Transylvania volleyball team came up with a split on Saturday at its home TU Invite event, narrowly falling to the Muskingum University Muskies in five sets in its first match, and bouncing back against the Marietta College Pioneers for a three-set sweep.
Transylvania came up just two points short in an early afternoon heartbreaker to the Muskies in a 23-25, 25-22, 24-26, 25-17, 13-15 defeat before winning convincingly against Marietta, 25-7, 25-22, 25-19 to move to 8-9 on the season.
Cate Scheper had a career-high 22 kills in the five-setter against Muskingum while Kaetlin Ethington had 12 kills. Grace Ward had a career-high 57 assists in defeat as Transylvania came up on the short end of three two-point margins against the Muskies.
Muskingum took the decisive opening set, erasing a 23-22 deficit late by scoring the final three points in the set for a 1-0 match lead. Transylvania bounced back, breaking open a 20-19 advantage with three straight points on two kills from Scheper and one of Madison Sweeney's 10 kills on the afternoon. Sweeney added one more clutch kill as the Pioneers tied up the match at 1-1.
The Muskies shocked the Pioneers again in the third set, extinguishing back-to-back set point chances for the Pioneers to grab a 26-24 victory to go up 2-1. Transylvania displayed its resilience with a dominant fourth set, amassing an afternoon-best .269 attacking percentage in the fourth set.
Trailing 9-6 in the fifth, Transy fought back to tie up the set at 12-12 on another kill from Sweeney. The teams traded points as Scheper came up with her 22nd kill of the day to force a 13-13 game. Muskingum had the final word, scoring two unanswered points to close out a thriller.
The Pioneers added a steady infusion of defense; Miller also tallied a career-high with 27 digs, as did sophomore Ava Beltsos with 22. Ward added to her career-high day with a season-high 16 digs.
Transylvania took out its frustrations on Marietta in the capper with a suffocating opening set that began with a 7-0 Transy lead; the Pioneers put together a .476 attacking percentage while holding the visitors to a negative .238 attacking percentage in the battle of Pioneers.
Marietta tried to stage the upset against Transylvania in the second set by bursting out to a 5-3 advantage and later growing the lead to 11-6. Scheper led a rally with three straight kills that eventually saw the Pioneers pull ahead, 15-14. With Marietta going up again by two points at 21-19, Suzanne Klosterman and Karrington Jackson delivered tying kills as part of a 4-0 Transy run. Marietta tied up the set at 23-all, but Klosterman and Madi Davis came up with clutch kills to put Transylvania on the winning end of a two-point set victory.
Down early at 5-4 in the third set, Ward and Scheper led a 7-1 Transy run to put the Pioneers in the driver's seat. The hometown Pioneers displayed their precision in the final set with a .419 attacking percentage off 15 kills and only two errors.
Davis led the Pioneers with 10 kills in the sweep while Makayla Davis led the Pioneers with a season-high 21 assists. Miller notched a team-high 11 digs in the win.
Transylvania rounds out its season-opening nonconference schedule on Tuesday, September 28 against the Spalding University Eagles at home. Opening serve is scheduled for 6:00 p.m. at the Beck Center.
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