Describing Wednesday night's volleyball match in the simple terminology of a Hiram sweep of John Carroll would be akin to saying Van Gogh's “Starry Night” is a nice painting.
 
There is much more to decipher than the 25-17 25-23 25-23 line score would indicate. 

Box Score

On two separate occasions, the JCU volleyball team held sizeable leads late in games but could not quite seal the deal in the matchup against the visiting Terriers in the Tony DeCarlo Varsity Center. 

Frustration about the way games two and three ended emitted from John Carroll head coach Cally Plummer post match. 

“We didn't execute, we didn't close, and we didn't finish opportunities,” said Plummer.

The first game was a challenge for the Blue Streaks as they struggled to keep up with the Terriers, losing 25-17. It wasn't until the second set that the Streaks hit their stride. JCU built a seven-point lead, 16-9 and seemingly staved off a Hiram rally by forging a 23-19 score in the late going. 

Communication failures, however, led to a few loose points and before John Carroll could right its ship, Hiram reeled off the last six points to claim game two, 25-23. 

Digging deep both on and off the court, the ladies strived for extend the match … and for while seemed poised to pull it off. Again, a strong beginning looked pleasing to John Carroll fans as the Streaks stormed out to a nine-point lead at 11-2. 

Disappointment arrived yet again, however, as the Streaks let a lead of 22-16 slip away by dropping nine of the final ten points in game three.

Hiram improved to 4-3 with the win while John Carroll slipped to 4-2. 

Junior Kerry Fox had a very solid all-around night, ending up with an impressive six service aces to go with a team-high eight kills. 

“I took one serve at a time and fed off of the energy from my teammates,” said Fox of matching her career best aces total. 

Working on fundamentals and communication, while picking up the energy level will be the focal points of future practices of the JCU Volleyball team according to Plummer. But it was not all negative for the fifth-year JCU mentor. 

“We knew that Hiram was talented and well coached,” said Plummer. “No one is happy about how tonight's match played out but we are going to take every opportunity to learn from it. We'll be better for it.”