Alverno College

MILWAUKEE – The Alverno volleyball team needed five sets to do it, but the team won its fifth match of the season on Wednesday evening inside of Reiman Gymnasium as the Inferno downed the Mount Mary Blue Angels.
 
Alverno won the opening set in commanding fashion with a 25-15 score before falling in the second set 25-23. The Inferno fought back to take the third set, 25-20, but Mount Mary matched the score in the fourth set to send the match into the fifth. During the final stanza, the Inferno put the match away with a 15-6 win to move to five wins overall on the season and 2-0 in matches needing to go five sets.
 
Freshman Natalie Onozie had a career-night as she tallied a season-best 20 kills on the night, hitting .231 in the process and also added a pair of aces with four assists and added a season-best 20 digs. Freshman Breann Flannery also wrote her name into the record book with 30 digs on the night, which places her seventh on the single-match digs record and five shy of tying to program mark of 35. Flannery also added a team-best three aces on the night with six assists.
 
Senior Alex McMath also had a career-high with 26 digs, added 23 assists on the night and made it a triple-double with 13 kills on the night. Junior Selena Upshur had eight kills on the night, her second-highest total of the season. Sophomore Izzy Gianniou had a double-double as she led the team with 24 assists to go along with 10 digs on the night with four kills. Sophomore Rolin West, playing in just three of the five sets, notched a dozen kills and a team-best .346 hitting percentage and added two aces and seven digs.
 
In addition to Gianniou with four kills, freshman Sharisty Kooch collected four of her own and chipped in with five digs. Freshman Jalea Taylor picked up a team-best four blocks, followed by Upshur with three while freshman Lynnica Harley added a pair of blocks.
 
As a team, the Inferno registered 101 digs the most since the fall of 2018, when Alverno had 104 digs in a five-set match with Mount Mary on October 20 of that season.
 
The Inferno fell behind in the first stages of the opening set but were able to tie the score at six before scoring another six points to take a 12-6 lead as Flannery collected an ace along with kills by McMath and Gianniou. With Alverno ahead by a 17-13 score, the Inferno put together another five-point run with a kill and an ace by Onozie along with a kill by McMath en route to the 25-15 win.
 
Alverno led by three points at both 6-3 and 7-4 in the second set, and the lead swelled to 12-6 in favor of the home team. However, and 8-3 run by the Blue Angels pulled Mount Mary within one at 15-14 before taking the lead at 17-16 and not turning back as Alverno was only able to pull within one at 22-21 and 24-23 before the Blue Angels won the set, 25-23.
 
The two sides were back-and-forth in the early-going of the third set before Alverno went on a five-point run on three-straight kills by McMath and a kill apiece by Gianniou and Upshur to give the Inferno a 10-6 lead. Mount Mary wrestled back the lead at 18-15 but it was McMath to spark a rally with a kill to put up six unanswered and give the Inferno a 21-18 lead. The Inferno were able to close out the set on a 4-1 run to take a 2-1 lead following the 25-20 third set win.
 
A late rally in the fourth set was not enough for the Inferno however, as Mount Mary led 23-14. Alverno scored six of the next seven points to pull back within four and fought off set point on those four occasions before it was ultimately Mount Mary to secure the 25-20 set win to send the match to a deciding fifth set.
 
After an early exchange and split of the initial six points of the fifth stanza, Alverno rattled off six consecutive points on a kill by Onozie, an ace by Gianniou and a trio of kills by West to put the Inferno ahead 9-3. Mount Mary got within five at 11-6, but McMath collected a kill followed by three Mount Mary errors to give the Inferno their second five-set win of the season.
 
Alverno (5-14, 0-7 NACC) will return to league play on Friday evening, when the Inferno play host to the Aurora Spartans beginning at 5 p.m. inside Reiman Gymnasium.