Despite ten kills by first-year outside hitter Lauren Galvin, the St. Thomas volleyball team fell to Oral Roberts in three sets Thursday at Schoenecker Arena.
Although the Tommies (2-16, 1-6 Summit) put in a “team effort” against the Golden Eagles (11-5, 5-2 Summit), they were unable to best them. The Golden Eagles kept the Tommies from scoring more than 20 points in any set.
“I think they play hard for and with each other,” coach Thanh Pham said. “It’s not about one individual performance, but a team effort, and I was really proud of how hard they were fighting.”
The Golden Eagles played a fierce first set, and while first-year outside hitter Libby Mattila was able to score two digs, the Tommies eventually fell 25-17.
“We have really good chemistry with each other and obviously we’re still working on it too, and connecting all at the same time but I think that even when we weren’t getting the point we were staying positive, we were staying gritty and staying in it,” Mattila said.
In the second set, junior middle blocker Sakira LaCour of the Golden Eagles was key to Oral Robert’s victory. LaCour’s eight kills prevented the Tommies from gaining much ground, even with an ace by first-year setter Hannah Pham.
“We dug ourselves into a hole a few times and we just need to stay competitive and be ourselves and be aggressive,” Hannah Pham said.
Both teams were coming off of losses. Oral Roberts fell to Kansas City Saturday, Oct. 9 while the Tommies extended their losing streak to five in Thursday’s match.
“We have to chase down the ball a little better, obviously Oral Roberts plays a little bit higher on the net, and so we’ll have to adjust what we do in the back row, but again, we need to control what we can, and I was very proud of our girls,” coach Pham said.
Mattila said that she will be able to take lessons from this game, and apply them to future matches.
“We can stay in it. We’ve had that for a couple games, but I think this one, even though we weren’t winning the end of rallies, we were really close with a lot of them, and we were picking up a lot of stuff that we normally would have been dropping,” Mattila said.
This is the first game of the Tommies upcoming four home game stand, all within nine days of each other.
“Our next few games are going to be really competitive teams from the Summit League. The fact that (Kansas City, Denver and Omaha are) at the top of our league is really fun and exciting to see and play,” Hannah Pham said. “We just need to be mentally tough, get the right nutrition, and play hard.”
The Tommies face off against Kansas City University at 3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 16. at Schoenecker Arena.
Owen Larson can be reached at lars6521@stthomas.edu.