Miscues Derail Lakers At Home Against Fighting Saints

CHICAGO – A host of errors came back to haunt Roosevelt on Tuesday night as the Lakers fell in four sets to St. Francis in a Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference match at the Goodman Center.

Roosevelt (4-4, 0-2 CCAC) limited much of its attacking errors for most of the match, but it struggled in service and receiving. The Lakers were credited with 18 service errors in the match and nine more receiving errors in gifting free points to the Fighting Saints. To make matters worse, the Lakers missed out on several free points of their own while failing to finish off points around the net in the 25-17, 21-25, 25-16, 25-16 setback.

Down 11-10 in the first set, Roosevelt surrendered the next seven points with just one coming courtesy of the St. Francis attack. All four attack errors made in the first set came during this critical stretch as did a pair of poor receptions that led to aces for the Fighting Saints. St. Francis scored four of its last seven points in the set on service errors from Roosevelt and also added an ace in that stretch to secure the set.

The Lakers looked like a different team in the second set and raced out to an early 7-1 lead with a fluid attack and strong defense at the net. Roosevelt would push the advantage to as many as eight points and never let the Fighting Saints get closer than three in the set as Roosevelt matched its 11 kills from the first set.

Whereas the Fighting Saints got cleaner as the night went along, the errors kept piling up for the Lakers, who actually hit .350 in the first set and watched their hitting percentage shrink from there. The third set was a back-and-forth affair for the first half before St. Francis turned up the offense and stymied the Lakers attack. Roosevelt led the set 11-10, but then surrendered five straight points and eight of the next 10 to fall into an insurmountable hole.

It looked like the fourth set was going to be a continuation of the second half of the third set as St. Francis jumped out to a 7-2 lead. However, the Lakers were able to narrow the deficit to 12-11 before the attacking errors became too much to overcome. Roosevelt had 10 attacking errors in the final set, six of which came after the Lakers clawed their way back into the match.

Viktoria Marysheva and Yuliia Shchepkina each had nine kills to lead the team while Alyssa Rodda and Joana Rafols had 12 kills each to lead the Lakers in that category. Isa Grana racked up 16 assists while Zoe Hutchinson added 13 helpers herself in a tough night for the Roosevelt attack. The bigger issue was four different players had at least three service errors for the Lakers, more than cancelling out the seven aces Roosevelt registered on the evening.

The Lakers will search for their first conference win Thursday night at 7 p.m. when they travel to University Park to face Governors State.