The IU Southeast women’s volleyball team fell to IU Kokomo in straight sets on Tuesday, Sept. 29 (26-24, 25-14, 25-23). The loss snaps the Grenadiers’ two game conference winning streak.

After the two conference wins in a row, the grenadiers looked to keep the ball rolling Tuesday night. After tonight’s loss, the Grenadiers are now .500 in both conference play (2-2) and in overall record (7-7). This puts them right in the middle of the conference rankings.

“One thing I can take away from this game is that the girls played very hard throughout the match,” head coach Eric Brian said.

The Grenadiers had chances late in both the first and the third set to gain a comfortable lead but could not pull away.

In the first set, the Grenadiers led 20-18 before being outscored eight to four. The same thing happened in the third set before the Cougars outscored the Grenadiers eight to three to close the match.

One statistic that has been the key factor in all of the losses for the Grenadiers this year is their defensive errors. The Grenadiers finished this match with a season high 23 errors. Other than the errors, the Grenadiers had a great outing by all their players.

Hannah Barker, junior setter, had a game high 25 assists, as she added to her season average of 8.8 assists per set. Barker is ranked second in the KIAC in assists per set. Hannah Joly, freshman outside hitter, finished the game with only 8 kills. Joly is ranked second in the conference in kills per set. Her counterpart Monica Loftus, freshman right side hitter, turned in a good game with a match high of 11 kills.

“We played very hard, but the game didn’t end in our favor unfortunately,” Loftus said.

Two positive factors for the Grenadiers from their defense was the play of Caitlynn Pfaadt, sophomore defensive specialist, and former KIAC defensive player of the week Taylor Sutton, sophomore defensive specialist. Sutton had a game high 13 defensive digs. Pfaadt added ten defensive digs.

The match with IU Kokomo was a game that the Grenadiers should have won Brian said. If the Grenadiers would have won they would have had a 3-1 record, which would have jumped to being tied for fourth in the KIAC conference. Instead they sit at 2-2 in conference play and eighth in the conference.

“Tonights game showed me that we have a lot of maturing we need to do if we want to get to where we need to be,” Brian said.

The next game for the Grenadiers is at home against Brescia University on Thursday, Oct. 1. This will start the longest month for the IU Southeast volleyball team, as they have 17 games in the month of October, with seven of those games being conference games. The week will end with a tough road trip to West Virginia as the have a double header against Appalachian Bible College and West Virginia Tech.

“This month coming up will be hard on the girls,” Brian said. “We need to focus on ourselves moving forward and getting better.”