GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — It was a record-breaking and career milestone night for Maddy Payne who took over the all-time career kills record against the Judson Eagles along with Paige Franz who hit the 500 career digs mark at the Sturrus Sports and Fitness Center on Friday night.
VS #12 AQUINAS
The Bethel Pilots (14-10, 3-5) took on an Aquinas Saints squad (24-1, 8-0)Â that only lost one match this season and held the 12th spot in the NAIA Coaches Poll at the home of Aquinas College and chipped away an early 11-3 deficit in the first set to a 20-19 AQ advantage, but the set would go to Aquinas 25-23.
The second was also led by AQ 9-3, but a service error followed by kills from Haley Biedenbach and Gracen Norris chipped the deficit down to 10-6.
The Pilots got as near as 20-18 before the Saints rode the momentum to a second-set victory 25-21.
The third was tied 4-4 when AQ went on an 11-3 run to grow to a 13-5 lead held the Pilots to 16 points won the set 25-16 and swept the match.
VS JUDSON
Maddy Payne took over the all-time kills career accolade with 10 kills against the Judson Eagles (12-8, 4-1) and surpassed Julia Reininga’s 1653 career kills (’93-’96) to take over the all-time kills and blocks record in the program’s history.
Paige Franz also hit a career milestone with 500 digs and tallied 22 in the match and 30 for the day.
The Pilots fell to a 2-0 set deficit 25-19, 25-19 but took off from a 10-10 tie in the third that was broken by Taylor Delp’s kill and Breyana Bosket broke up the 11-11 tie not long after. Bethel held the Eagles to a set win 25-21 with Gracen Norris’ kill to put the third set away.
Judson took and held the lead with a consistent advantage of about four points and took the fourth set 25-17 and the match 3-1.
NEXT TIME OUT
The Pilots return to Crossroads League play with a road match at Ariel Arena to take on the Mount Vernon Nazarene Cougars on Wednesday, Oct. 9 at 7 p.m.