The Baker University volleyball team was not able to dig out a win against Benedictine College in the university’s inaugural “DIG PINK” match.
Last year against Benedictine, the Wildcats battled back from a 2-0 deficit to win 3-2, but Benedictine swept the Wildcats 3-0 (25-23, 27-25 and 25-22) winning by a combined seven points Tuesday night.
“We made a lot of unfortunate errors at the end of each game,” head coach Kathy Allen said. “They didn’t beat us at the end of the games, we beat ourselves.”
Senior Christina Delladio recorded six blocks and senior Brooke Pryor recorded 16 kills, including a kill to keep Baker alive in game three, when Benedictine was leading 24-20.
“We’re kind of at the point where, the only place we can go is up, and we know we’re a good team, and we don’t understand why we’re losing, and we don’t feel like we should be losing,” Delladio said.
Junior Kelsey Allen said the team went into the locker room after the match and put up all its goals for the rest of the season on the board so they would see them every day.
“At the beginning of the season, it was make it to nationals … and now, toward the end of the season, it’s come together and just be the team we know we can be,” Kelsey Allen said.
The stands of the Collins Center were covered in pink instead of the usual Baker orange, as the volleyball team purchased more than 300 pink T-shirts and accepted donations during the “DIG PINK” match, which was to promote breast cancer awareness.
The team will match all donations and give the money to the Side-Out Foundation. The foundation is sponsoring “DIG PINK” in high school and college volleyball matches across the nation.
“It was awesome to have everyone here,” Kelsey Allen said. “I loved getting support from our fans, and I hope this loss doesn’t not make them want to come to our games in the future, because we have more and we still want and love their support.”
The Wildcats were a game ahead of the Ravens going into the match, and now both teams are tied at 5-3 in the HAAC and three games behind first-place Evangel University.
After Tuesday’s loss, the ‘Cats are 18-12 on the season. BU finished last season with a record of 32-4, but the team has played against more nationally-ranked teams this season.
Baker has two conference games remaining this season, against MidAmerica Nazarene University and Avila University, as well as playing in the Haskell Quad Friday and Saturday in Lawrence.
“Everything is fixable, that’s exactly how we’re looking at it,” Delladio said. “It’s not that we don’t have the talent, it’s just something is not working. We just have to work harder.”