Roadrunners Lose a Close One, Then Win Two at Macomb

SMC Volleyball faced tough competition at the Macomb Invitational this weekend and proved pretty tough themselves.

The Roadrunners lost a nailbiter to the Delta Ducks 22-25, 23-25, 25-15, 25-16 and 14-16 in the first match of the day, then had to turn around and face the host Macomb Monarchs on their home court with no break. However, SMC proved the stronger team and prevailed 25-16, 22-25, 25-14 and 26-24. 

In each of those matches, sophomore and NJCAA Division II Defensive Player of the Week Cadence Knight had 34 digs, which set a new SMC mark. After all of Saturday's action, Knight is now SMC's career digs leader, with 837 and counting, eclipsing Nikki Nate, who had 808 digs in her two-year stint over the 2022 & 2023 seasons. Knight already holds the single-season digs record with 548 in her freshman season of 2022. She ranks 12th nationwide in DII for digs per set at 6.02. With at least 16 more matches yet to go this year, every dig from here on adds to the record number. With her current average of 22 digs per game, Knight is projected to cross 1,000 career digs in early October.

The Roadrunners weren't done after two tough matches and had to face the North Central Michigan Timberwolves Saturday evening, winning in a sweep 25-20, 25-19, 25-20. 

"I want to make sure we have faced the toughest competitors we can face to prepare for the conference season," said Head Coach Jenny Nate, "and we have definitely done that as we have had three weekends in a row of travel and some battles with a lot of strong teams.  We went 2-1 today, and in all three matches we had to fight hard.  First, we faced a strong Delta Team and we learned a lot about ourselves from that match.  We took a loss, but we know we have to play clean ball against evenly matched teams - we have to keep the unforced errors to a minimum, over communicate on the court, and play aggressively every point with no hesitation. We didn't let that slow us down as we walked into the next gym and took down Macomb on their homecourt in four sets then we faced North Central and swept them. The team is ready for a rest day tomorrow before we hit the practice court Monday to prepare to face Ancilla in our opening conference match on Thursday." 

The Roadrunners are now 10-3.