A hot start quickly cooled for the Fort Lewis College volleyball team.
The Skyhawks won the opening set Friday in Denver against Metro State before falling 3-1 (22-25, 25-18, 25-19, 25-10).
“The entire game, we battled back and forth,” FLC head coach Kelley Rifilato said. “In the fourth, we let some serving errors in a row lead to some passing errors and reception errors.”
Metro State (11-2, 5-0 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference) hit 57 kills compared to 36 for FLC (4-9, 1-4 RMAC).
That helped the Roadrunners to a .280 hitting percentage, while the ’Hawks hit just .105.
Ashley Wells led the Skyhawks with 14 kills and a .276 hitting percentage. She also chipped in 10 digs for another double-double.
Courtney Harms took over the Skyhawks’ primary setting duties with 28 assists.
“Her court presence is very happy,” Rifilato said. “Her demeanor is happy. She wants to please the hitters and has a great rapport with our players.”
Kennedy Clark and Ciara Krening had been splitting the job after an injury to original starting setter Heather Danny.
Rifilato wouldn’t commit to Harms as a permanent solution, however.
“We’ll see,” she said. “I feel like (Friday) was a really good thing. I saw good things out of our hitters. There was a lot more diversity. Whatever works best for us.”
heraldsports@ durangoherald.com
