BLOOMINGTON, Ill. -- In a battle of top 15 nationally-ranked teams, No. 12 Illinois Wesleyan lost in five sets (3-2) to No. 14-ranked Millikin before a large, enthusiastic crowd at the Shirk Center on Tuesday, Oct. 10.
The Titans' school-record 12-match winning streak was snapped by scores of 25-22, 23-25, 25-19, 19-25, 10-15. IWU is now 14-5 overall and 4-1 in the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin while the Big Blue improved to 17-5 overall and 4-0 in the CCIW.
For the five sets, IWU had a .158 hitting percentage with 56 kills in 184 tries while the Big Blue hit .182 with 62 kills in 192 attempts. Both teams had 27 attack errors. In the critical fifth set, IWU managed an .033 hitting percentage with four kills in 30 tries while Millikin accounted for 12 kills in 32 attempts and hit .219.
Junior
Tyler Brown led the Titans with 13 kills and had 18 digs while senior Kyleigh Block had 11 kills and paced the team with 24 digs, three shy of her career-best. Junior
Rachel Burkman had 10 kills and 17 digs and senior
Maisy Bowden added 10 kills and a team-high five total blocks.
Freshman
Claire Bergman and junior
Maddie Williams each had four kills and sophomore
Kira Jackson and freshman
Caitlin Meyer had 25 and 23 set assists, respectively.
What's Next?
The Titans face another unbeaten conference team in Carthage (13-5 overall, 3-0 CCIW) in a 6 p.m. match on Friday, Oct. 13. Illinois Wesleyan will celebrate Homecoming weekend with an alumnae social following the Friday night game and on Saturday morning at 10, the IWU junior varsity team will face a contingent of former Titans in an alumnae game.
