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SPRINGFIELD, Ohio — There were seven matches played on two courts over the course of nearly nine hours in Wittenberg University's Pam Evans Smith Arena. The first six went pretty much according to form, setting the stage for a confrontation between two of the top three teams in the national rankings that lived up to its billing.
Top-ranked Calvin, the defending national champion, rallied to defeat the third-ranked Wittenberg Tigers in an epic five-set match. The Knights, who beat Wittenberg in a 2010 NCAA Division III regional championship match on the same floor, improved to 9-0 on season with wins over Mount St. Joseph and the Tigers. After beating 13th-ranked Hope earlier in the day, Wittenberg suffered its first loss of the campaign to drop to 7-1.
The marquee match-up started out well enough for Wittenberg, which comfortably won the opening set, 25-18. However, after taking a 20-14 lead in the second set, the Tigers were unable to pull away from the Knights, yielding six straight points before being forced to rally themselves just to stay in the set. Calvin finally evened the match with three straight points to win 31-29.
Wittenberg again appeared to gain control in the third set, pulling ahead by the same 20-14 score but this time allowing Calvin to get no closer than three points the rest of the way. With the match in the balance in the fourth set, the Knights jumped out to leads as large as five points before the Tigers made a tremendous rally of their own, scoring four straight points to even it as 24-24. However, Calvin gained the upper hand the rest of the way and ended the set with back-to-back kills from All-American Lizzie Kamp to win 29-27.
The Tigers led 8-6 at the switch of sides in the middle of the fifth and deciding set, but Calvin won five of the next six points and eventually stretched the lead to 14-11. With freshman setter Meghan Vodopich (Canton, Ohio/Perry) serving, the Tigers rallied for three straight points, but once again the Knights came up big at the end of a set, forcing a pair of Wittenberg attacking errors from 15-15 to secure the victory.
Wittenberg put a whopping five players in double figures for kills in the match, led by the senior tandem of Hannah Riley (Minerva, Ohio/Minerva) and Kimmie Dyer (Copley, Ohio/Copley) with 13 apiece. Defensively, the Tigers were paced by senior Katie Sumner (Dublin, Ohio/Watterson) with seven blocks and senior Catherine Farny (Fort Wayne, Ind./Concordia Lutheran) with six, while junior Christina Gilene (Milford, Ohio/McNicholas) was outstanding with a match-high 36 digs.
Calvin picked up 55 assists from All-America setter Megan Rietema and a combined 43 kills from Lizzie and Rebecca Kamp.
Against Hope, the Tigers dominated by scores of 25-17, 25-18, 25-22. The setting tandem of Vodopich and junior Hallie Donathan (Tipp City, Ohio/Tippecanoe) finished with 17 assists apiece, with Dyer and junior Jessica Batanian (Sylvania, Ohio/St. Ursula) being the most frequent targets with 10 kills apiece. Gilene was high with 16 digs and Sumner led with three blocks.
In addition to Calvin, 11th-ranked Heidelberg went 2-0 on the day, defeating Alma and Mount St. Joseph, both in straight sets. Hope came back to defeat Ohio Northern, and Alma rallied to defeat Bluffton. A complete summary of scores from the day can be found on the Great Lakes Regional Challenge page.