BU Volleyball falls to Midland at Nationals

SIOUX CITY, Iowa -- Despite another double-double from Maddie Squiers and a pair of Bruins recording double figure kills the No. 22 Bellevue University volleyball team fell to No. 5 Midland University, 3-1, on Wednesday evening in their second of three pool play matches at the NAIA Volleyball National Tournament being held at the Tyson Events Center.

Midland opened with victories in each of the first two sets by scores of 25-21 and 25-20, respectively, but the Bruins, as they did against Oklahoma City, rallied to take the third set by a score of 25-19. The Warriors were able to put the Bruins away 25-19 in the fourth set to claim the match.

With the victory, Midland improves to 28-3 overall while the loss drops Bellevue to 31-12 on the season.

Midland out-hit the Bruins .229-.108 on the evening and tallied 82 digs to Bellevue's 68.

Pakalana Helekahi paced BU with 14 kills while Marylyn Mozena provided 11 for Bellevue. Taylor Holz led the Bruins with 19 digs on the night. Shayla Scanlan finished with seven kills and Mikaylah Gillespie added six to the cause.

For Squiers the double-double was her team-leading 16^th of the year as she finished the match with 40 assists and 15 digs.

The Warriors were led by Priscilla O'Dowd's 14 kills. Krystina Koepke and KC Heimann supported her with 13 and 12 kills of their own on the evening.

Defensively, Darcy Berry and Heimann co-led Midland with 21 digs apiece while two other players –Jessica Peters (17) and Anna Grovjohn (10) – added at least 10.

Heimann (12 kills, 21 digs) and Koepke (13 kills, 10 blocks) both tallied double-doubles for Midland.

Bellevue concludes pool play tomorrow evening when they take on Mobile at 5 p.m. The top two teams in each group advance to the single-elimination Round of 16.

The path to the next round is cloudy for Bellevue. In order for the Bruins to advance, they must defeat Mobile tomorrow as well as have Oklahoma City lose later tonight against Mobile and tomorrow against Midland. From there, a series of tie-breakers come into play.

Pool E Standings:

* note - Oklahoma City and Mobile play later Wednesday evening