Volleyball sweeps Wayne State Friday at SDC Gym Play Video
Posted: Oct 11, 2019

Volleyball sweeps Wayne State Friday at SDC Gym

HOUGHTON, Mich. – The Michigan Tech volleyball team continued its quality play at the SDC Gym with a 3-0 sweep of Wayne State Friday (Oct. 11). The Huskies are 7-1 at home with seven sweeps after winning 25-20, 25-11, and 25-8.

"I'm just really happy with the way we stuck to it after the first set," Tech coach Matt Jennings said. "The defense on blocking and the backcourt was as good as I've seen it in a long time. We took a good offense out of sorts, and I think we were firing on all cylinders tonight."

Tech (12-4, 7-1 GLIAC) got down by four early in the first set but quickly tied it up. There were seven ties before the Huskies took a 1-0 lead with five straight points, including three on Laura De Marchi aces. Rachel Ping and Olivia Ghormley tallied four kills in the opening frame.

The Huskies jumped out to a 6-0 lead and built it to 12-3 in the second. The Black and Gold hit .548 and cruised to a 25-11 win. Ghormley had seven kills and Emilia Widen added four. Anna Jonynas added six digs.

The home team found its groove again in the third not allowing double-digit points in a set for the first time this season with a 25-8 win. Seven different Huskies had a kill in the third.

Ghormley had a match-high 15 kills. Six other Tech players recorded at least two kills with Widen, Ping, and MacAulay Petersen tallying seven. De Marchi set the offense with 37 assists. Megan Utlak (14), and Jonynas (13) led the back-row defense in digs and Ping added three block assists at the net.

De Marchi and Ghormley were recognized in a pre-match ceremony for recent milestones. De Marchi eclipsed 3,000 assists on October 4 and ranks fourth in Tech history in career assists. Ghormley recorded her 1,000th kill on September 28 and currently ranks eighth in program history.

Tech hosts Ashland Saturday (Oct. 12) in a battle of two of the three teams at the top of the GLIAC standings.

"It's always a good game against Ashland," added Jennings. "They have a good coach and great weapons on the offensive side of the ball. We need to be ready to play for sure, and it's going to be a lot of fun."

First serve is set for 4 p.m. The Eagles defeated Northern Michigan 3-2 Friday in Marquette.