Alverno College Athletics - Home of the Inferno

MILWAUKEE -- The Alverno College women's volleyball team closed out its 2009 season schedule with a 3-0 loss to Mount Mary College in non-conference play on Thursday evening at Mount Mary.

The Inferno (0-28 overall) have continued to adjust to injuries on the team that have forced certain players into unfamiliar positions. Despite the changes that saw sophomore Ashley Graham (Cudahy, Wis.) moved to middle hitter, the squad kept close with the Blue Angels in the first set, falling five points short with a 25-20 result in favor of Mount Mary.

Unfortunately the Inferno couldn't come up with a way to narrow the gap any further, dropping the second two sets, 25-17 and 25-10, respectively.

DUNBAR, Wis. -- With various team members forced to fill in at unfamiliar positions due to injuries, the Alverno College women's volleyball team dropped a non-conference match to Northland International University, 3-0, on Tuesday evening on the road.

"We struggled tonight as we were down to seven players with one not fully recovered from an injury," said Alverno head coach Crystal McClure. "Again, we were out of rotation and out of positions, but they did well at adjusting to their new positions in the second and third sets since we were simply not clicking in the first."

The Inferno's struggles showed in the first set, as the squad dropped a 25-5 decision before finding its stride a bit more in the second two sets. The team found more of a comfort zone at those new positions, but Northland was able to adjust to take the final two sets, 25-14 and 25-14.

ROCKFORD, Ill. -- The Alverno College women's volleyball team suffered a 3-0 defeat to Rockford College in Northern Athletics Conference play on the road to close out its 2009 league schedule on Saturday afternoon.

In spite of a few injuries that shook up the Inferno's line-up, the squad managed to put a good deal of pressure on the host Regents, fighting the hardest in the third set to end with a close 26-24 loss. The first two set scores resulted in 25-17 and 25-11 losses for Alverno (0-26, 0-12 NAC).

"We played really hard and were very close in the third set, pushing for extra points," said Alverno head coach Crystal McClure. "We had JoAnna (Sobolik) injure her ankle in warm-ups so Ashley Graham had to play middle for us today, which is a position she's not used to playing. All in all with all the injuries and mixing up of positions, I thought we played really well."

MILWAUKEE -- With both squads entering Friday night's match having yet to win a Northern Athletics Conference contest in 2009, the Alverno College women's volleyball team had hoped to give Milwaukee School of Engineering a battle to sever its winless streak. But the Raiders had other ideas, using a superior team hitting percentage (.302) to walk away with a 3-0 victory in Alverno's Reiman Gymnasium.

"The match tonight was very up and down," said Alverno head coach Crystal McClure. "We hit these mental blocks as a team and we can't seem to break them. I did see some improvements in some things that we've been trying to touch base on, so it's good to see that they're applying new skills every single time we play a match."