On Oct. 10, the Eagles came back home after going through a 3-game stretch winning set with a combined score of 9-2. The Eagles would end up hosting North Iowa Community College.
Going into the first set it looked like the Eagles would not expect it to be competitive. Starting off the set going down 2-0 off two mistakes.
Kirkwood would then battle back to go up 5-4 before eventually going down 5-7 off an ace. At the very beginning of the set both teams would keep very long and suspenseful volleys going back and forth on many occasions and which would turn out to make the set more competitive.
Kirkwood would eventually go up 19-13 in the set but then North Iowa would go on a run lead by many mistakes as the team from Kirkwood brought it back to 19-17.
For the rest of the set it seemed like Kirkwood would eventually figure it out finishing the set on a 6-2 run with Lexi Hearn shutting the door with a powerful spike to take set one.
Going into the second set everyone thought it would be a lot closer than it turned out to be. But that would not be the case with Kirkwood having a lead for the entirety of the set. The Eagles would start off going up 7-2 lead by huge defensive contributions getting many blocks that were nonreturnable and no match for North Iowa.
From then on, Kirkwood would also pick up their attack for the day landing many spikes that would be deflected out of bounds as North Iowa’s defense was just no match for Kirkwood’s attack.
North Iowa would eventually come back and bring the lead down to four bringing the score to 13-9 but from there on Kirkwood would just dominate the rest of the set lead by their amazing defense off a 12-3 run winning the set 25-12 off an Alyssa Tegeler block for the set win starting the match 2-0.
Set three was very similar to how the second set went with just pure dominance from Kirkwood, the Eagles had a very strong defense but their offense was questionable at times with being inconsistent.
In this third set, the Eagles limited their mistakes to very close to zero starting off 10-7 before going up 18-13 off a lot of nonreturnable spikes before the Eagles would win the set 25-14 winning off a missed spike attempt from North Iowa going straight into the net for the sweep to end the match.
Kirkwood now goes on to a six game road stretch lasting two weeks before they come home on Oct. 25 to host Hawkeye Community College in their last regular season home game of the year before they go to Ottumwa and play Indian Hills for the final game of the regular season.
The team then goes into the Region 11 tournament hoping to win and make nationals at the Alliant Energy Powerhouse.
Categories: Sports
