RIVER FALLS, Wis. (Blugolds.com) – The UW-Eau Claire women's volleyball team and UW-River Falls played an extremely close match, but the Blugolds came away with the victory, winning 3-2 at the Karges Center tonight.
After River Falls won the opening set 25-19, the Blugolds took the next two 25-22 and 25-21.
In the fourth set, the Blugolds led late but River Falls came back and evened up the match at two sets apiece after winning 26-24.
In the final set, the Falcons jumped out to a lead, getting up at one point 11-8. But the Blugolds fought back and were able to win the set 17-15. The Blugolds had no errors with eight kills in the final set.
Eau Claire outhit the Falcons .257-.175 with 64 kills and 16 errors compared to 58 and 25, respectively, for River Falls. Both teams had nine total blocks.
Four Blugolds reached double figures in kills with Megan Tracy (Sr.-New Hope, Minn./Robbinsdale Cooper) leading the way by tying a match-high 16 kills, the most in her career.
Jamie Dimka (Jr.-Wausau, Wis./East) led the match with 23 digs and Jenna Smits (Jr.-Green Bay, Wis./Preble) had a career-high 53 set assists to lead the match.
Eau Claire is now 15-14 on the season and 2-3 in WIAC play. River Falls drops to 10-14 overall and 3-3 in the conference. The Blugolds have now won 17 straight matches over the Falcons going back to 2004.
Saturday the Blugolds will compete at the University of Minnesota-Morris in a match beginning at 4:30 p.m.
-KAM-
