UU's Hendricks achieves career milestone

Oct 5, 2013 11:54 AM

Bill Tipple

The Urbana University volleyball team nearly won their first home Mountain East Conference contest on Friday night, but the visiting Rams from Shepherd University escaped with an important road win instead. The teams traded wins back and forth through the first three sets. Shepherd won the opener 25-16, followed by a dominant 25-9 Blue Knight victory in set #2, and a Ram 25-20 win in the third set. Urbana pushed the Rams to the brink in the fourth set, but the visitors edged Urbana late 27-25.

Despite the loss, one Blue Knight hit a major milestone on Friday night. Sophomore setter Mary Hendricks recorded her 1,000th career assist in the third set. The Urbana High School product becomes just the 7th Blue Knight in program history to top 1,000 career assists, and she achieved the feat in less than a season and a half. On the night, Hendricks handed out 38 assists to go along with 12 digs. Kasia Walczak continued her strong play up front for the Blue Knights, converting 10 of Hendricks' assists into kills. Junior Kelsey Volkmer led all Urbana hitters with 12 kills, against just 1 error in 28 attempts. She hit a team-high .393, added 2 aces and recorded 13 digs to record another double-double. Libero Kaci Eurez led the squad in digs with 14.

The Blue Knights (4-9, 1-2 MEC) are back in action this afternoon against the Falcons from Fairmont State University. The match is set to begin at 1 p.m. in the Grimes Center. FSU swept Notre Dame College Friday night and enters the match 13-3 overall and a perfect 3-0 in the MEC.