UChicago Earns Sweep Over Carthage
The University of Chicago volleyball team earned the win against Carthage in three straight sets on Tuesday night. The Maroons' dominant performance was led by a freshman duo of Adelee Kaiton and Olivia Ip, who recorded 21 of UChicago's 43 kills.
The Maroons had a rocky start in set one as Carthage jumped out to a 5-1 lead. UChicago answered with a kill from Kaiton to help the team find the momentum to cut the deficit to 6-5. After both teams went back and forth for the majority of the set, Carthage capitalized on a couple of service errors from the Maroons to take a 20-18 lead. However, the Maroons answered with a run of their own, and a big block by Gaby Miriki and Caroline Sele gave the Maroons a 21-20 advantage. Despite Carthage earning multiple set points, the Maroons were able to fight off the set point opportunities before a kill by Kaiton gave the Maroons the first set.
UChicago hit its best in set two with a 0.171 attack percentage on only 25 attacks. The Firebirds again took an early lead, but this time it didn't take long for UChicago to respond. Though Carthage cut the lead to two multiple times, the Maroons never lost the lead and closed out set two with a 25-22 win.
In the final set, the Maroons played their most dominant set of the year as UChicago only allowed Carthage to score 13 points. Gabi Spellings led the Maroons on a six-point scoring run to help the Maroons reach their biggest lead of the match at 13-2. Kills from Sele, Thalita Marangon, and Monika Brinlee closed out the final four points for UChicago to earn the well-deserved sweep.
Marangon, Gabi Spellings, and Caroline Sele finished the match with six kills each. Hillary Cheung recorded 13 assists and eight digs. At the net, Olivia Zamis
led the team with three blocks.