Grace celebrates a point Monday night in a win over Huntington. Photo courtesy Sam Baker

By Josh Neuhart
Grace College Sports Information

WINONA LAKE – Grace’s volleyball team showed resilience to defeat Huntington 3-1 on Monday.

The Lady Lancers recovered after dropping the opening set, outclassing the Foresters for the next three sets to take the match.

Gabbey Harrington directed the attack for the Lady Lancers (7-4, 7-4 Crossroads League), amassing an impressive double-double of 42 assists, 12 kills, 6 digs and 2 aces.

Harrington helped three other teammates reach double-digit kills, including Paige Eakright (13 kills), Makaela Lochmueller (11) and Cassadi Colbert (10).

Grace was slow beginning the match on Monday. The Lady Lancers lost eight of the first 12 points and never came out of that hole.

Harrington did much of the heavy lifting offensively in the set, leading Grace with four kills.

The Lady Lancers’ attack was much more dynamic in the second set. Grace forced Huntington to burn an early timeout after grabbing a three-point lead, and the Lady Lancers maintained a slight lead en route to a 25-19 win.

After producing eight kills in the opening set, Grace racked up 15 kills with just two errors in the second set.

Lochmueller had five kills in the set, and Harrington had four more kills. Mackenzie DeLong proved strong defensively, adding one solo block and two block assists in the second set.

The teams could barely be separated in the third set. Grace’s defense was the difference with four blocks. The Foresters (0-13, 0-12 CL) were forced into 11 attack errors as Grace won 25-20 to take control of the match.

The momentum was all Grace’s for the rest of the match. The Lady Lancers won the first six points of the fourth set and never slowed down. Grace pulled ahead 10-2 and soon after opened up a double-digit lead en route to a final 25-14 victory.

DeLong, playing in her second varsity match, secured the win with a kill on the final point of the match. DeLong finished with 2 kills, 1 solo block and 4 block assists.

Colbert and Eakright each had five kills in the fourth set to propel Grace’s attack, which exploded for 19 kills in the set.

Julia Nagy covered a lot of ground defensively, tallying a match-high 27 digs to go along with six assists and two aces.

Gina Novotny had 14 digs and an ace, Emily Sharp had 11 digs, and Brittany Baize added nine digs and two aces.

The Lady Lancers hit the road on Wednesday for a match at Bethel at 7 p.m. Grace then returns home on Saturday for a 3 p.m. contest against Goshen.