Saturday, October 1 saw the Lawrence women’s volleyball squad travel to southern Illinois to match up against conference foes Knox College. In what is always a tough match for the Vikings, they came up short in three sets. Knox won 25-12, 25-12 and 25-21 as the Vikings made a strong surge in the third set, but were unable to pull a set back before succumbing to an early defeat.
The match came at arguably the worst possible time for the team, who were coming off one of the most challenging portions of their 2022 schedule to date. The previous weekend, Lawrence traveled to Luther College in Iowa and played four matches in two days against very tough opponents including Hamline University, Carroll University, hosts Luther College and nationally ranked Augsburg University. First-year Mikala Seymour made the team of the tournament, but these four games meant the team had played 17 matches in the month of September alone. With a very small roster consisting of only 12 players, that kind of wear and tear takes a toll on the body and injuries are imminent. Anyone who has been to a Lawrence volleyball game this season will be able to attest to the number of players who play with some form of wrap, brace or tape job. For those who haven’t, I’ll spoil the quiz: it’s nearly all of them. Starting setter Dana Mestey didn’t even feature in the tournament on account of a concussion she had picked up the previous week, as was the case for defender Kali Pfannerstil while sophomore Taylor Hughes is also out of action due to a recently developed knee injury, leaving even less cover for the worn-down Vikings.
This tournament was then followed by two more matches in the week leading up to Knox. The worrying trend that has emerged in recent weeks is that the Vikes have seemed to stop winning sets, even in their losses. The weekend of September 17, Lawrence hosted its own tournament. They lost all four matches, but still showed signs of improvement as they won at least one set in three of their four games. But the following two matches were 3-0 losses, as was this one against Knox. What this tells me is that fatigue and mounting injuries are really beginning to take a toll. I just hope for their sake they are able to get healthy soon, as they have four matches to play in an eight-day span coming up.
The Vikes are back in action at home on Saturday, October 8 against Beloit in Midwest Conference play.