The Eagles volleyball team closed out their season this weekend with two home games. Friday night was against Hillsdale and the Eagles came out victorious, 3-1. 

Following the Hillsdale match, the Eagles were on a 4-game win streak and postseason hopes were still alive. 

“We talked about it [postseason] every day,” AU head coach Cass Dixon said. “We talked about the fact that we were in control of our destiny and that how we performed would determine our final outcome.”

Ashland lost the first set of the match to Hillsdale, 25-17. This did not kill the Eagle’s spirit, as they came back fighting and took the last three sets, 25-20, 25-23, and 25-17.

“After our first set, we told them that we had to continue playing disciplined- to throw out those few points that we weren’t and to keep plugging away,” said Dixon. 

Their mid-set talk worked and Ashland came out looking like they had been playing this well all season. 

The team hit .203 on the evening. Contributing to that was the sophomore squad. Alli Cudworth led with 20 kills, Casey Clark had 11, and Rylee Scott recorded 17. 

All three women had double doubles on the evening. Clark led the defense with 25 digs.

Hillsdale’s offense was held to .178 hitting and top hitter Jordan Denmark to only nine kills.

As the match ended in favor of the Eagles, they knew they had a big game the next day against Findlay. 

“We talked about recreating the same energy and the same level of work that we put into our match against Hillsdale,” said Cass Dixon.

Saturday afternoon Ashland faced GLIAC South Division leader, Findlay. At the start of the match, Ashland felt they had strong energy and momentum from the previous night’s win against Hillsdale. 

“We were focusing on playing our best volleyball and if we did that then we had a pretty good chance of coming out with a win,” said Dixon.

Findlay came out strong taking the first two sets and Ashland fought back by taking the second two, forcing a fifth set to just 15 points.

“It was our second 5-set match of the year (Southern Indiana at the crossover was the first),” said Dixon. 

“We needed to continue that [disciplined and controlled volleyball] and then points would end up going our way. We talked about controlling the first contact- whether it was in serve receive or in defense in order to run our offense.”

The Eagles were able to jump-start their offense thanks to freshman Kilee Kimmel’s 18 digs on the match. From Kimmel’s success, setter Katie Siefert was able to record 49 assists, while Cudworth had 19 kills and Sam Zuber had 10. 

Each set was a battle and fight to the end. None of the sets went into extra points, but the difference in final scores was not more than seven. 

The fifth set was the toughest on the Eagles. Findlay led during the set 5-4 and, due to some unforced errors by Ashland, the Oilers were able to push through to take the final set and the match. 

Ashland finishes the season with an 10-15 overall record, and an 10-8 GLIAC record.