The Aquinas women's volleyball team traveled down the road to Cornerstone to face the Madonna Crusaders in the WHAC tournament semifinals on Friday night (Apr. 9). The Saints offense and strong energy carried them past Madonna to take the match in five sets by scores of 25-19, 24-26, 21-25, 25-17, and 15-8.
The first set was all AQ as the Saints started with a quick 13-6 lead. The Crusaders were able to close the gap, getting the point differential down to four at 18-22 and 19-23 to gain some momentum going into the second set. Aquinas hit .333 in the first, totaling just three hitting errors as a team.
Second set went to the Crusaders after trailing late in the set 24-21. A big play off one of the Crusaders' faces gave Madonna the momentum needed to finish the set. Two straight kills and an AQ error tied the game at 24 a piece. Two more points for the Crusaders ended the set in their favor, 26-24.
The Crusaders kept the momentum again in the third, getting themselves out to an 11-6 lead forcing an Aquinas timeout. It's just what the Saints needed to crawl back and tie the score at 12-12. It went point for point down the stretch before Madonna closed the set on a 5-1 run after being tied at 20.
A big 25-17 fourth win in set four for Aquinas shifted the momentum back to the Saints and forced a huge fifth set. AQ's offense was unstoppable in the fifth, starting with a big 5-1 lead as Kylie Christensen tallied a pair of kills early. Madonna went on a quick run to bring the Crusaders within one. AQ answered with two back-to-back kills from Christensen and Meredith Kraus to force a MU timeout.
AQ was able to tally four kills to Madonna's two and earn the Saints a large 13-7 advantage late to force another timeout. A kill from Samee Teachworth and a kill from the remarkable Christensen notched the huge five-set WHAC semifinal victory over the Crusaders. Aquinas hit .357 in the fifth set and totaled 11 kills.
The loss will move Madonna to 14-5 overall and 11-4 in WHAC play. The win will advance Aquinas to an impressive 21-2 overall record, 12-2 WHAC and secure a spot in the WHAC tournament finals.
Saints were led by the impressive play of Christensen who led the team in kills, finishing with a season-high 20 kills and career-high 17 digs. Christensen hit .315 in the match and added a service ace and two block assists. Kali Crawford dished out 49 assists and tallied 10 digs. Crawford also notched three kills and three block assists.
Emily Jones totaled 12 kills, hitting .294 and added three block assists. Three other Saints tallied double-digit digs as Adrien Yondo finished with 24, Kenzi Dobosiewicz with 11, and Sam VanHouten with 10. Kraus notched 10 kills and three digs for AQ. Teachworth added eight kills and five total blocks while Payton Klein totaled five kills and eight digs.
Aquinas returns to the court tomorrow (Apr. 10) as the Saints compete at Cornerstone again, this time in the WHAC tournament finals. AQ will face the winner of #22 Cornerstone/Indiana Tech tomorrow starting at 1:00 PM.
