The ACGC volleyball team headed into last night's match hoping to close in on a first division finish in the WCAC, but found itself outmatched by Earlham, another one of the teams vying for that fourth place spot in the conference. The Cardinals pitched a 3-0 shutout at the Chargers, winning in straight sets by scores of 25-20, 25-21, and 25-19.

In the first set the Charges held a 10-8 lead, but the Cardinals knotted the score at 10-10 and never trailed again on its way to the 25-20 win. In set two the last Charger lead was at 7-6 when Earlham rattled off seven consecutive points to take the lead for good. ACGC closed to within 23-20 and 24-21, but Earlham scored the final point for the victory. Set three saw the Chargers make a comeback by tying the score at 19-19 after trailing by as many as five points, but the Cardinals scored the last six points of the set to win by a 25-19 margin.

The Chargers appeared a step slow in the loss, an observation that seemed to be confirmed by coach Noe when she said, "We had an off night. At moments we played well, but overall we did not play the way we can and have played all season. Moving forward, we're going to use this match as a lesson and finish the year strong."

Statistically, the ACGC kill efficiency (attack attempts, minus attack errors, divided by total attacks) was at .083, about half of its normal efficiency of .160. On the other hand, the Charger serving efficiency was slightly better than 95%, its best of the year. Few serve aces were recorded last night, with the team scoring only 4 for the night. The season average is 9 aces per three set match.

MaKayla Hoing led in kills with 9 out of 19 attack attempts, while numerous Charges had great success from behind the serving line. Genevieve Hoover, Samantha Sloss, and Chelsea Larsen were perfect with 12, 11 and 7 successful serves respectively. Mady Smith was 12 of 13, while Hoing was 9 of 10 and Olivia Laabs went 7 for 8. Smith and Larsen led in assist with 10 and 9 respectively. Hoing led in digs with 10, followed by Laabs with 8, Smith with 7, and Hoover with 6. Jadeyn Carrick led in blocks with 3.

The loss drops the overall record to 14-8 for the season and to 3-4 in the WCAC. The team will travel to Anita on Saturday, Oct. 7 for the CAM Invitational. Teams from Ar-We-Va, Iowa Christian Academy, Orient-Macksburg, Panorama, Paton-Churdan, and Riverside will compete along with host CAM and the Chargers.

Line Score WCAC Standings W L

ACGC 20 21 19 DMC 6 0

Earlham 25 25 25 W-G 5 1

Van Meter 5 1

Ogden 4 2

ACGC 3 4

Earlham 2 4

Madrid 2 4

Panorama 1 5

WCV 0 7