CHICAGO – The Roosevelt volleyball team fought back from a set deficit on two occasions, but the Lakers ran out of gas in the fifth and decisive frame to Cardinal Stritch, 25-21, 14-25, 25-18, 21-25, 15-9, in front of a spirited crowd at the Goodman Center on Tuesday night.
Roosevelt falls to 10-5 and 1-2 in CCAC player, while Stritch moves to 8-6 overall and 3-0 in conference contests.
Valerie Cutrone led all attackers with 19 kills, while Vanessa Owusu had an efficient night with 10 kills and just two miscues.
Arielle Nausieda had a game-high 25 digs, while Marissa Minturn dished out a whopping 44 assists during the evening.
The match was tightly-contested in the first set. Stritch took the early lead and led by as many as eight late, but Roosevelt roared back from a 19-11 deficit to get within three at 22-19, a stretch capped by three consecutive kills by Riley Koepsell, Cutrone and Owusu to force the Wolves to take a timeout.
But Stritch would take advantage of three Laker miscues and capture the opening frame.
Undeterred, Roosevelt would break an early 5-5 deadlock in set two by outscoring Stritch 10-2 and cruising to a 25-14 match-knotting decision.
The third set was tight, but the visitors would eventually pull away as 11 errors plagued the Lakers in a third-set defeat.
Roosevelt repeated its second-set feat in an even tighter fourth frame. The two teams would fight back and forth and engage in a tie on seven occasions, but Roosevelt broke a 17-17 set status with three consecutive points. Koepsell then took a feed from Minturn to smack down a set-deciding kill that sent the match into the fifth.
The Lakers took an early 2-0 lead in the decisive set, but the Wolves outscored Roosevelt 6-1, aided by four Green and White mistakes, to elicit a timeout and hold the advantage for good. The Lakers could get no closer than four in the late stages, and a Jasmine King kill on a lunging feed dug from a diving Claire Crossfield ended the match.
Roosevelt hosts Moody Bible at the Goodman Center this Wednesday at 7 p.m.
