Rio roars back to stun Pomeroys, advance to RSC semifinals

Rio Grande Sports Information
     ST. MARY-OF-THE-WOODS, Ind. - Sometimes, the best movies are the ones where you don't see the ending coming.
     With Tuesday night's River States Conference quarterfinal round matchup against St. Mary-of-the-Woods College bearing a strong resemblence to its regular season meeting with the Pomeroys, the University of Rio Grande women's volleyball team opted to author a re-write of the finish.
     The RedStorm spotted their host a quick two-set lead before roaring from behind for an improbable 22-25, 22-25, 25-14, 25-19, 15-5 victory at Hamilton Arena.
     Rio Grande, which was seeded fifth in the eight-team tournament, won for a sixth straight time and improved to 20-10 for the season - it's first campaign of 20 or more wins since 2016.
     The victory was also the first post-season triumph for the RedStorm since a straight sets sweep of Indiana University Southeast on Nov. 11, 2016 in Cincinnati, Ohio.
     Rio Grande advances to Friday's semifinal round for a meeting with 14th-ranked and top-seeded Indiana University Kokomo, which ousted eighth-seeded Indiana University Southeast in one of the other three quarterfinal contests.
     St. Mary-of-the-Woods, which entered the night as the tourney's No. 4 seed, dropped to 28-7 with the loss.
     The Pomeroys appeared headed to a decided win after taking each of the first two sets but, as was the case in their regular season meeting in Rio Grande on Oct. 20, the RedStorm rallied to take sets three and four and force a winner-take-all fifth stanza.
     Head coach Billina Donaldson's squad ran itself out of gas in the regular season comeback as SMWC dominated the deciding fifth set, but only got stronger in Tuesday night's win.
     The Pomeroys managed a 1-1 tie, but never led in set five as Rio Grande bolted to a 10-3 advantage and never looked back.
     Freshman Kelli Stewart (Waverly, OH) recorded consecutive kills to close out the match.
     Rio Grande finished with a .228 attack percentage, tallying 58 kills and 22 errors in 158 total swings.
     Senior Amanda Rarick (Canal Winchester, OH) led the way at the net with a team-high 18 kills, while graduate senior Tess Perdue (Lexington, KY) had 12 kills of her own.
     Junior Avery Huntzinger (Canal Winchester, OH) had 26 assists and four service aces in the winning effort, while junior Sofia Otero Marrero (Vega Baja, Puerto Rico) had 22 assists and junior Ashton Webb (Gallipolis, OH) finished with a match-high 29 digs.
     Junior Jordan Brooks (Reynoldsburg, OH) added a solo block and three block assists for the RedStorm.
     Hannah Zuege had a match-best 24 kills to go along with 12 digs, two solo blocks and two block assists in the loss for SMWC, while Alexis Keoho and Lillian Breaux had 22 and 14 assists, respectively.
     Jocelyn Chavez had 24 digs for the Pomeroys.
     SMWC finished with 51 kills and 33 errors in 158 attacks for a .114 swing percentage.
     Rio Grande's semifinal round tilt with IUK is scheduled for a 5 p.m. first serve at the Student Activities & Events Center in Kokomo and will proceed the second semifinal which pits No. 2 seed Indiana University East against third-seeded Oakland City University.
     Friday's semifinal winners will meet for the championship on Saturday, also in Kokomo.