The Monmouth College volleyball team played in the Midwest Conference Tournament for the first time since 2012 but their season ended Friday with a 3-0 loss in the semifinals to top-seeded Cornell. The Rams, who went 8-0 in conference this year, beat the Scots 25-20, 25-12, 25-11, thus ending the best Monmouth season in nine years.
The Scots stayed with the 19-11 Rams through the first set before the hosts pulled away for the five-point win. The lead changed hands four times during the set and there were six ties as the Scots hit .225 to the Rams .261.
The Scots never led in the second set as Cornell hit .429 and got a sideout on 75 percent of their chances. Monmouth hit just .037 in the middle set as Cornell won 25-12.
Monmouth hit better in the third set at .097 and had an early lead. The set was tied four different times but Cornell eventually pulled away to a 25-11 win as they hit .394 in the final set. The Rams will face No. 2 seed Grinnell in Saturday’s final with a NCAA bid on the line.
Freshman Layne Wright (Davenport, Iowa) and junior Amanda Dybal (Apex, North Carolina) led the Scots with eight kills each while senior Loryn Beal (Pontiac, Illinois) had six. Karlie Drish (Milan, Illinois) had 18 assists on the Scots 26 kills. Kaylee Woodard (Monmouth, Illinois) finished a brilliant senior season with 15 digs while Drish added eight.
MONMOUTH MOMENTS: Woodard was named Midwest Conference Newcomer of the Year on Friday. She was also named to the All-Conference First Team, the first Monmouth player to earn that distinction since 2012Drish was recognized as the MWC’s Elite 20 Award recipient for having the highest GPA among postseason volleyball participants. She is the first Monmouth student-athlete to win the award since Aspen Chadderdon did so for soccer in November 2019At 15-14 the Scots finished over .500 for the first time since 2012Drish finished the season with 629 assists, good for 17th on the Scots single-season list. Woodard’s 15 digs jumped her over Kari Bailey-Shimmin, Karissa Murray and Renee Rude into fifth on the Scots single-season list with 597She finished with 6.15 per set, the second-best number in school history and the best in the MWC this season. That number ranks her in the top five among all D3 players as of Friday night…Dybal led the Scots with 225 kills this season while Wright had a team-best 2.32 kills per set. Beal led the team with 40 aces while Megan Kimble (Farmington, Illinois) led the way with 74 blocks and Sarah LaHood (East Peoria, Illinois) had 57.
***Report Courtesy of Nathan Baliva, Monmouth College***
