Story by Eva Dean Folkert/Photos by Lynne Powe

Playing at home for the first time in the 2021 fall season, the No. 9 Hope College volleyball team swept non-conference opponent Muskingum University on Friday to start the two-day Hope Tournament. The Flying Dutch took down the Muskies, 25-19, 25-19, 25-18, in DeVos Fieldhouse.

Hope improves to 6-1 while Muskingum falls to 5-5.

After a spring 2021 season of playing a limited schedule in front of a limited number of fans due to the pandemic, head coach Becky Schmidt was delighted to see many friendly Hope and Holland fans turn out to watch Flying Dutch volleyball again in DeVos.

"We are so blessed to have a community that really cares about volleyball," said Schmidt. "To have so many community members back, to have our students be able to sit next to each other and cheer, it was awesome."

The Flying Dutch's attack throughout the match was best defined as multi-pronged and multi-talented. In hitting .241 (to the Muskies .034), Hope had four starting players swing above .200.

Senior middle blocker McKenna Otto (Wheaton, Illinois/Wheaton North) led Hope in both attack percentage (.269) and kills (10); senior outside hitter Molly Ligon (Beverly Hills, Michigan/Birmingham Seaholm) swung a .261 percentage to record six kills; senior outside hitter Rose Thompson (Coopersville, Michigan/Unity Christian) put down eight kills while hitting .250; and, Ana Grunewald (Grand Rapids, Michigan/East Grand Rapids) notched nine kills on a .214 hitting percentage.

The Flying Dutch never trailed in the first set, though their hitting percentage in that set was its lowest of the match (.111).

In the second set, Hope hit much better (.333), but the Flying Dutch played a good deal of catch-up in the early going. Muskingum dictated much of play, jumping out to a 10-7 lead.

But Hope went on a four-point run to catch the Muskies and take a one-point lead at 11-10. After some point trading toward the last tie score of the set at 15-15, the Flying Dutch used its various attack weapons, connecting on emphatic kills and forcing Muskingum into errors.

The momentum was all Hope's in the third set, as the Flying Dutch took command after a 3-3 tie, never relinquishing the lead the rest of the way.

"I thought that we made some good offensive adjustments late in the sets to try to take advantage of some things that we were seeing with Muskingum's defense," said Schmidt. "I give Muskingum a lot of credit. I thought that they did a nice job defending some of our hard-driven attacks and really forced us into having to try to attack their block a little bit, use some smart off-speed shots to try to keep them off balance."

Senior setter Traci Westra (Clarendon Hills, Illinois / Timothy Christian) had 34 assists while sophomore Maggie Wehrmeyer (Holland, Michigan/West Ottawa) led in digs with 18 while Grunewald added 16.

Though Hope had five aces for the match, led by Otto with two, the Flying Dutch also committed nine services errors.

"We served too many balls out of bounds," Schmidt admitted. "And that's something we just need to rein in a little bit."

The Flying Dutch return to action tomorrow, Saturday, Sept. 18, taking on two more non-conference opponents in DeVos Fieldhouse. Hope plays Cornell College (Iowa) at 11 a.m. and Dominician University (Ill.) at 3 p.m.