FREMONT, NEBR. – The Hastings College volleyball team hit the road to take on No. 15 Midland and fell in four sets 15-25, 25-23, 17-25, 21-25 on Wednesday night.
Hastings also entered this tough matchup without its top two attackers in Ilse Benne and Majesta Valasek and needed some new faces to emerge.
After dropping set one to the Lady Warriors 25-15, Makenna Asher found some trust in Samatha Bax and her middle Kaitlin Thiebauth.
The Lady Broncos held on to a slim 12-11 lead when Asher connected with Grace Branson for a kill in the middle. She then went outside to Nicole Haywood followed by the true freshman Bax for the kill as the lead jumped to four at 15-11 forcing a Midland timeout.
HC would build the lead to six but back came the Lady Warriors getting to within one before Asher connected with Bax for the kill to give them set point. Midland then got a kill from Cortlyn Schaefer to make it 24-23 as Head Coach Alex Allard called her final timeout. Asher then went back to the middle as Thiebauth hammered home the kill for the 25-23 set two win as Hastings tied things 1-1.
Riding that momentum, Hastings jumped out to a quick 8-3 lead behind three kills from Thiebauth and two kills from Asher. After Midland cut it to 8-5, a double block from Thiebauth and Madison Glenn followed by an Asher kill forced a Midland timeout as Hastings seized the momentum.
Then in what seemed like a hearbeat, the Lady Warriors seized the momentum right back by going on a 20-7 run to close out the set to take a 2-1 lead into set four.
Midland then jumped out to a huge 20-8 lead in set four but the Lady Broncos would not go down without a fight. HC would go on a 6-0 run highlighted by blocks from Asher and Thiebauth a Madison Navarrete service ace and a kill from Glenn. Then Hastings scored six of the next eight points to make it just a two point set but Midland would score the final two points of the set to fend off the fierce comeback attempt.
Thiebauth led the way with a career high 16 kills while hitting .244. Branson added eight kills while Asher finished with five. Asher did finish with another double-double with 26 assists and 14 digs. Miriam Miller led the way with 16 digs.
As a team, Hastings hit .122 while Midland hit .232.
Hastings falls to 5-6 (0-4) on the year and will be back in action Friday Sept. 15 taking on Bellevue at 2:00 pm and then will face off against Oklahoma Wesleyan at 7:00 pm down in Ottawa, KS.