It was a rough day for the Gustavus women’s volleyball team as they dropped three straight games to both Carleton (3-0) and Macalester (3-0) at Gus Young Court in St. Peter. The three MIAC rivals Gustavus, Carleton and Macalester played a round robin schedule in St. Peter with all three games counting as non-conference contests. The three teams had played their regularly scheduled MIAC matches earlier in the season. With its two victories, Macalester improves to 18-10 overall, while Carleton moves to 17-7 and Gustavus falls to 17-10.
In the Gusties first match of the day against Carleton, sophomore Anne Osthus led the team with 11 kills, four digs and three blocks. Game scores for the match were 19-30, 24-30, and 28-30. Gustavus committed 33 attack errors in 146 attempts for a .038 attack percentage.
In the second match against Macalester, Gustavus led 29-26 in the first game but lost 31-29. The Scots went on to win game two 30-24 and game three 30-24. Sophomore hitter Tara Houlihan led the way with 15 kills and 17 digs.
Gustavus will close out the regular season with a very important match at home against St. Mary’s on Wednesday, Oct. 29. The Gusties still have an outside shot at a playoff spot. They would need to beat St. Mary’s, have St. Olaf beat Carleton and Bethel beat Macalester. This would cause a three-way tie for the sixth and final playoff spot with Carleton and St. Olaf and it appears that Gustavus would win the tiebreaker criteria between the three schools. Should Carleton defeat St. Olaf they would clinch the sixth playoff spot outright.
Junior setter Rachel Batalden compiled 68 assists in the two matches to push her career total to 2,827. She now sits in second place on the Gustavus career assist list moving ahead of Keri Urosevich at 2,769. Jessica Lobben ranks first all-time in assists with 4,021.