The IU Southeast women’s volleyball team won one out of three matches on their weekend road trip to Pittsburgh, Pa.

The Grenadiers played two games in the annual Battle of the Boulevarde  Invitational at Point Park University, and then played Carlow University the next day. The trip moved the lady Grenadiers to 2-3 overall, 1-1 in the KIAC conference.

They started the weekend off on Friday, Sep. 5 with  a loss in three straight sets (25-20, 25-15, 25-12) against Point Park.  The Grenadiers were led by  Sara Schum, senior , with eight kills and  Michala Beasley, freshman, with seven.  Meaghan Thompkins, senior,  had 19 assists in the loss.

“Point Park was a really tough opponent.  To be honest, they were better, against us anyway, than Lindsey Wilson,” head coach Eric Brian said, “We played fairly well, Point Park just played better than we did that day.”

The next game was against the Lawrence Technological University Blue Devils.  The Grenadiers lost in a five set match (25-19,22-25,25-20,20-25,12-15). The team was led again by Schum with 17 kills and 15 defensive digs.  Stephanie Bradshaw, senior, contributed with 22 defensive digs as Thompkins had 24 assists.

“That was a very winnable match for us.  We are still struggling with a few things, so every game is a learning experience,”  Brian said.  “The loss to Lawrence Tech is tough because we feel we are a better team.”

After losing the first two games of the road trip, things started to look up for the Grenadiers. They traveled to Carlow University to play the Celtics and won in straight sets (13-25,22-25,13-25).  The Grenadiers were led again by Schum with 10 kills, which gave her 35 total kills for the road trip.  Katie Fischer, sophomore, finished with 6 kills and 4 blocks.

“Saturday we played a lot better and came out with the win against Carlow,” Fischer said, “I think the reason for this win was because we worked a lot better as team.”

The Grenadiers got  good games from their freshman.  The team has five freshmen that play a significant amount of time. Logan Flannagan, freshman, averaged 5 kills a game while Beasley finished with 19 kills for the trip.

“We have a really young team this year and I think it’s hard to get everyone to communicate and work well together on the court, especially in back to back games like on Friday,” Fischer said. “But the road trip was definitely a good experience to travel as a team and to work on some of the things that still need to be corrected.”

The  team’s most recent match was against the  Spalding University Golden Eagles on Tuesday, Sept. 9. They won, taking the game to the full five sets (18-25, 25-22, 20-25, 25-19, 9-25).

The Grenadiers have two big road tests this weekend.  The first is today at 7 p.m. at St.Catherine College.  The second is tomorrow at 11:30 a.m. as they visit #13 in NAIA Division 1, Georgetown Tigers.