VOLLEYBALL

The HU volleyball team suffered their first loss of the season against Concordia, 22-25, 16-25, 25-16, 25-20, 16-14, in the opening game of the Forester Tri-Match on Tuesday before responding with a victory over Trinity Christian, 25-23, 23-25, 25-19, 29-27, later in the day.

With this split, the Foresters move to 5-1 on the year. It’s the program’s best start since the 2019-2020 season when HU lost their first match but then rattled off five straight wins.

Against the Cardinals, Herber and crew started off with a pair of wins before the guests got their bearings in the third set and kept things rolling in the fourth to even things up at 2-2 forcing the rubber match.

HU jumped out to a 7-3 lead in the decisive fifth only to watch Concordia battle back to take a late lead that they were able to ride out for the win.

Haley Kruse topped the match with 18 kills to go along with 16 digs and five assists. Kortney Grimm added 16 kills while Maisyn Robrock and Trevyn Terry posted nine and eight kills respectively.

Morgan Robrock directed the offense by dishing out 53 assists. Layla Meyer led the defense with 18 digs. Olivia Krahn matched Kruse with 16 digs. Makailah Thompson collected seven digs and logged five aces.

The afternoon contest against Trinity Christian remained close throughout with Huntington only dropping the second set in their 3-1 decision. Kruse and Terry made sure of that. The pair combined for 33 of their team’s 54 kills with Kruse piling up a match-high 18 while Terry putting down 15. Grimm and Leah Carter’s contributions were also noteworthy as they finished with eight and seven respectively.

Robrock ran the show with 49 assists bringing her day’s total to 102. Defense was by committee with Kruse tallying 19 digs while three others in Meyer (13), Krahn (12) and Thompson (11) also posted double digit digs.

“Today consisted of its ups and downs,” said Coach Kelsey Herber. “However, the loss to Concordia does not have to be a failure if we learn from it and are better because of it.

“I’m proud of the way we bounced back and got the win this afternoon. We are going to continue working on making adjustments quicker and passing balls that allow us to run our quick tempo offense.”

Next up for Herber and crew is a home match at Huntington North High School against IU Northwest on Saturday at 6:00 p.m.