The volleyball team maintained its first place regional ranking with seven consecutive wins coming into this week.
Four of those wins came last weekend in the Loyola Invitational Volleyball Tournament, which Loyola won.
In the first match, Loyola defeated Southwest Baptist University, 30-27, 30-20, 30-25.
Suzi Ruiz, history junior, had 33 assists and three aces in the victory. Melissa Showalter, communications junior, added 11 kills to lead the Wolfpack. SBU fell to 6-12.
In the second match Saturday, the ‘Pack defeated Dillard, 30-23, 30-25, 30-24. Showalter led Loyola in kills again, this time with 12.
Communications junior Amanda Gilliard had 11 kills and 16 digs. Ruiz contributed 38 assists. Dillard fell to 17-12.
The Wolfpack has won seven in a row against the Blue Devils.
In the early match Sunday, Loyola swept its fourth consecutive match, defeating Sewanee, 30-10, 30-22, 30-24. Gilliard and Ashley Cobette, chemistry and pre med freshman, led the Wolfpack with seven kills each. Laurie Cacioppo, management sophomore, added 22 assists and nine digs.
The ‘Pack defeated Millsaps College, 30-16, 30-26, 29-31, 28-30, 15-10, to win the championship.
Ruiz led the team with 55 assists and 23 digs. Communications senior Maggie Schaefer had 23 kills to lead the Wolfpack and added 16 digs. Gilliard recorded 13 kills and 21 digs. Loyola improved to 13-5.
Loyola’s Schaefer, Ruiz and Cacioppo were named to the All-Tournament team.
The Wolfpack finished its home stand against conference foe Spring Hill.The first game was easy enough, with the Wolfpack winning, 30-15.
“They (Spring Hill) made a lot of mistakes in the first game,” Head Coach Greg Castillo said. “But then they stopped making mistakes and we started making them.”
In the second game, Loyola fell behind 4-0 and never completely recovered, although they did have several small leads.
Schaefer had a kill at the Badgers’ first match point, but Spring Hill converted the second to win, 30-26.
The third game had six ties. After the ‘Pack went up 6-3, the Badgers quickly came back to tie the score at eight.
Loyola did not go back up by three until 18-15, then Spring Hill scored the next six points.
The Wolfpack later had a 28-25 lead, but the Badgers scored the next two points. Shannon LaHaie, marketing sophomore, got a kill to go up 29-27. A Spring Hill mistake ended the game, putting Loyola up two games to one.
In the third game, the ‘Pack had leads of 4-1, 6-2, and 10-4. Seven ties and three lead changes later, the score was knotted at 21. Then the Badgers scored eight of the next nine points. The Wolfpack fought back, but it was too little, too late as they lost the game, 30-24.
The match had begun to resemble the Millsaps match. Loyola was poised to win another five-game match.
“They (Loyola) have a lot of confidence in themselves. They know what they need to do in the fifth game. I don’t need to say much,” Castillo said.
Spring Hill still had the momentum though, and went up 3-1.
But the ‘Pack fought back, tying the score at three. The Badgers got the next point, which was answered with five straight Loyola points.
The Wolfpack eventually went up 13-7 on a spike by LaHaie. On her next attempt, which was at match point, Spring Hill thought they could block it, which they did — into the floor on their side of the net.
So Loyola won the fifth set, 15-8.
“I thought [the match] would be easier,” Castillo said.
We have not heard the last of the Badgers, however. The Wolfpack will travel to the Spring Hill campus in Alabama on Tuesday.
“It’s going to be tough,” Castillo said “Their crowd really gets into it. We lost our first two games there last year, but we still won the match.”
In the victory, which was Loyola’s eighth in a row, Schaefer led the team with 19 kills and also had 13 digs.
Ruiz helped out with 51 assists. Gilliard almost had a triple double with 18 kills, 16 digs, and eight aces.
The ‘Pack will travel to Montgomery, Ala. to face Georgia Southwestern on Oct. 24 and compete in the Faulkner Tournament that weekend.
