By James Kay
For the Hawkeye volleyball team, there’s no place like home.
After a four-set loss at Purdue on Nov. 12, the Hawkeyes have fallen to 3-6 in the Big Ten when playing outside Carver-Hawkeye.
“The unfortunate part is we just didn’t maintain intensity,” Iowa head coach Bond Shymansky said in a release after the match.
“That’s really the biggest part. When you are on the road in this kind of environment, you have to maintain intensity,” he said. “We had the lead in the third set and gave it away, and the fourth set, we were tied at 13, and they got some serious momentum, and we needed to keep our intensity and focus there. I feel for our gals. They are frustrated because they want to keep winning, and they can smell and taste how close it is, but we are just going to keep going and working to get better.”
Sophomore Reghan Coyle (12), redshirt freshman Meghan Buzzerio (11), and junior Jess Janota (10) all registered double-digits in kills. Janota continued her strong campaign by hitting .391 for the match.
“Coyle did a fantastic job. Janota did a fantastic job, and Buzzerio is making teams pay for not paying attention to her,” Shymansky said in the release. “We had good things going, but you have to keep them going when you are at this level, so we will get back to work.”
Senior Loxley Keala added 42 assists and 9 digs. Sophomore Annika Olsen recorded 12 digs, marking her eighth-straight game of tallying 10 or more digs.
The Hawkeyes hit a meager .221 against Purdue, which is actually their highest hitting percentage on the road against a conference opponent this season.
The Boilermakers were able to light up the Hawkeye defense, hitting .308 as a team.
Junior Danielle Cuttino led the Boilermakers with 16 kills, though she didn’t have her most efficient match (.220 hitting percentage). Azariah Stahl hit a spectacular .429 while picking up 15 kills.
Before its loss against Purdue, Iowa had won all of its matches when winning the first set (25-21). But this match, the Hawkeyes gave the rest of the sets to the Boilermakers (25-19, 25-22, 25-16).
Purdue snapped a two-match losing streak, while the Hawkeyes have started a skid of their own with their third-straight loss.
The Hawkeyes will return to Carver-Hawkeye on Wednesday to face Rutgers at 7 p.m.
