WORTHINGTON -- Riverland won its second Minnesota Community College Conference, South Division, volleyball match of the season with a 3-1 triumph over Minnesota West on Wednesday night.
This was the first conference road win of the season for the Lady Devils as they prevailed by scores of 19-30, 30-28, 30-18, and 30-22. The first two games were close affairs, but then Riverland used its height advantage up front to pull away for the divisional victory.
"In the first game, we had underestimated them and they came out ready to play," Riverland coach Helen Jahr said. "We made a bunch of serve receive errors and that was followed by repeated attack errors.
"This was because we had trouble running our set offense. We fell behind 23-6 and then made a comeback. We decided to play in the latter two-thirds of the game, but it wasn't enough to pull out a win after the bad start."
The second game was a crucial turning point for the visitors. Riverland jumped out to an early 10-7 lead, but then Minnesota West came back to tie at 13-13. The Lady Devils then started to breakaway from that point on and pulled out to a 25-17 lead, but it wouldn't be easy closing out the game.
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"They caught up in the second game and brought it back to 27-26, before we closed it out," Jahr said. "We had a little lull in the action, but we played well in the third game and took control of the match.
"In the last game, we started out with the serve and got three kills right away from Melissa Cummins to take a 3-0 lead. They rallied to tie it at 6-6, but then Krista Jackson had two straight kills and we took the lead for good."
Leading the statistical tally for the Lady Devils were: Becky Herrmann with 20 attack kills, 17 digs, and a trio of ace serves; Cummins had 18 kills and 9 blocks; and Jackson recorded 9 kills, 5 blocks, and three ace serves. Jenny Schnaufer added 17 digs and Stefanie Benson had 34 set assists in the road win.
Riverland volleyball (3-8, 2-4) plays host to Bethany Lutheran of Mankato in MCCC South action on Friday night in Austin.
