Box Score | Photo Gallery | W.A.R International
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – On the same night that the DU Volleyball team pitched in to help Women at Risk (W.A.R) International, the Lady Panthers fought back from a 2-1 deficit to defeat rival Cornerstone 3-2. The win, which gives DU a season sweep over the Golden Eagles, lifts their overall record to 14-10.
Head Coach Megan Garner and her Lady Panthers have been partnering with Women at Risk (W.A.R) all season long and tonight was the culmination of a season long fundraiser that will benefit the foundation for over $1500 dollars.
The teams also got down to business on the court as Davenport jumped out to a first set win 25-21. The Lady Panthers took the lead 5-4 on an error by CU and increased the margin to five after an Amy VanEns (Lowell, Mich.) kill. Cornerstone though fought back as they would do all night and took the lead at 15-14 increasing it to two points at 17-15. DU hung tough though and scored eight of the final 12 points behind the strong offensive play from Ashley Penny (New Hudson, Mich.) and defensive play from Courtney DePriest (Grand Rapids, Mich.) and Sami Hausmann (Marne, Mich.).
The second set was close down to the wire as Cornerstone fought off a late DU rally to even the match at 1-1 with a 25-23 win. After leading by as many as four in the high teens, the Golden Eagles were able to hold off DU who had gotten to within one at 23-22.
Cornerstone then took control in the third set taking their first lead at 6-5 and increasing it to as many as five at 14-9. DU stormed back to within two at 16-14 behind two kills from Kassie Graves (White Cloud, Mich.) and Ashley Penny (New Hudson, Mich.)y sandwiched around a CU error. The Golden Eagles remained calm however and closed out DU 25-22 taking a 2-1 lead in the match.
For as close as the first three sets were, the fourth was just the opposite as Davenport dominated in every facet evening the match at two sets a piece with a 25-16 win. The Lady Panthers took the lead for good at 13-12 and ran off 12 of the next 16 points for the convincing win.
Looking to post their first ever sweep over their GR-rival, Davenport got off to a very slow start in the deciding set with a missed serve and two hitting errors to give CU a 3-0 lead. The Lady Panthers though scored the next three to tie the score and took the lead for good at 6-5 when Kassie Graves (White Cloud, Mich.) pounded a ball down the line. Graves picked up three more kills in the set and was joined by Ashley Penny (New Hudson, Mich.), Kayla Vandermolen (Cedar Springs, Mich.) and Amy VanEns (Lowell, Mich.) to complete the comeback 15-9.
Ashley Penny (New Hudson, Mich.) led DU with a season high 18 kills while hitting at a .350 clip from the right side. Graves posted 17 kills and 10 digs for the double-double and Kayla Vandermolen dished out 43 assists to go along with 14 digs. Defensively, DU was led by Courtney DePriest (Grand Rapids, Mich.) with 28 digs and Sami Hausmann (Marne, Mich.) with 15. The Panthers also finished with 13 total team blocks (2 solo and 22 assist) led by Kassie Graves' (White Cloud, Mich.) five total blocks.
Davenport (14-10, 6-5 WHAC), will now host their second annual DU Panther Invite this Friday and Saturday. They begin the tournament on Friday with a conference match against UM-Dearborn at 3:00pm. All matches will be available through live stats and full information can be found on the Volleyball page on www.dupanthers.com
