The Grinnell College volleyball team dropped a pair of matches Saturday at Lake Forest College, falling in four sets to the hosts in Midwest Conference action and then in five sets to Trinity International University.
Lake Forest beat the Pioneers by scores of 25-22, 24-26, 25-13 and 25-16.
Against Lake Forest, Claire Weidman ’15 (pictured) had 10 kills, Michelle Briggs ’13 had nine and Gillian Dryjanski ’12 came up with eight.
Olivia Wilks ’12 had 38 assists, while Lindsay Fujimoto ’15 had 11 digs and Weidman and Kate Duran ’12 tallied 10 apiece. Briggs came up with five blocks.
After losing the first set, Grinnell also trailed the second 20-17 before some late magic. The Pioneers scored three points in a row, two on Weidman’s serve, to tie things at 20-all.
After falling behind 23-21 and 24-23, Weidman had a kill on Kircher’s serve to tie things up. Weidman had another kill after that to put Grinnell ahead 25-24, and an attack error by the hosts gave Grinnell the victory.
However, Lake Forest rallied to win the next two sets and secure the match victory.
Trinity International posted a 22-25, 25-20, 25-20, 17-25, 19-17 win over Grinnell.
Kircher and Briggs each had nine kills for Grinnell, while Natalie Duncombe ’15 added eight kills and hit .333.
Wilks had 40 assists, three aces and 10 digs. Kircher came up with 15 digs, Duran had 12 and Fujimoto 10. Briggs also had seven digs and Duran three aces.
Grinnell was down 20-19 in the first set before going on a four-point flurry as Duran served three of those to make it 23-20 in favor of the Pioneers. Grinnell closed out the win from there.
After Trinity International won the next two sets, Grinnell used a big run to win the fourth. Tied 8-all, the Pioneers went on a 7-1 run to pull away. Kircher had three service points during that span as Grinnell went on to win with ease.
Grinnell had leads of 13-12, 14-13 and 16-15 in the fifth set before Trinity International rallied for the win.
The Pioneers finished MWC play at 6-3 and now must await results of some other teams before knowing if they’ll qualify for the league’s postseason tournament. Grinnell, 9-15 overall, closes out the regular season Friday at Coe College. Match time is 7:30 p.m.
