Queen Bees Volleyball down, but not out in MCC

Nov. 4, 2004
By Melisa Abbott
Sports Editor

With the conference championship on the line, the St. Ambrose University Queen Bees welcomed the Iowa Wesleyan College Tigers to Lee Lohman Arena in a winner-take-all game for Midwest Classic Conference supremacy.

Iowa Wesleyan (17-4) was ranked 25 in the nation, first in the conference, and first in NAIA Region 7. St. Ambrose (14-6) went into the game ranked second in the conference and fifth in NAIA Region 7, just one game behind the Tigers. A win would have meant a three-way tie for first in the conference, and a loss would mean heartbreak for the Queen Bees.

In three straight sets (30-26, 30-25, 32-30), the Tigers took away St. Ambrose’s hopes of a conference championship. Despite the three game sweep, it was close down to the final serve.

“This is a 50/50 match,” head coach Bruce Billingsley said. “ I’d love to play them a couple more times.

“I thought all the girls played well. When we made mistakes no one person made a lot of mistakes, everybody made their share. Everybody did their share of good things, everybody made their share of mistakes.

“They’re the top seeded team and we maybe gave them more respect than they deserved.”

On the day of the game, Iowa Wesleyan’s Luren Baylon was named player-of-the-week in the NAIA.

St. Ambrose had two players named player-of–the-week in the Midwest Classic Conference. Senior outside hitter Kristi Murray and freshman setter Becky Fetter were coming off of outstanding performances the prior week. Murray was leading the team in kills, serve aces, and digs while Fetter was setting the team up with 12 assists per game.

With this loss and a couple of key losses in the conference, the St. Ambrose Queen Bees aren’t out of the post season mix.

“The dilemma is The Franciscan University plays Iowa Wesleyan this week, so if they beat Franciscan we end up in a three way tie for second with William Penn, Franciscan and us,” Billingsley said. “Out of the three-way tie, we finish third because of the loss to William Penn earlier in the season.”

Even as the third place team, St. Ambrose will still be looking at home court advantage in a first round play-off match. A second round play-off match at home would only happen if the number two team is upset in the first round.

“We still have a shot at even hosting a second round,” said Billingsley. “ The ideal situation is to finish second and know that you’re gonna host.”

With conference action over, the St. Ambrose Queen Bees looked to a few non-conference games against Mid-America Nazarene, Brescia, and Carthage College in the Quad City Classic.

The Queen Bees took two out of the three games, defeating Brescia in four game while knocking off Carthage in three, before falling to Mid-America Nazarene in three games.

Next up for the Queen Bees will be the conference tournament that starts the first weekend of November.

The MCC quarterfinals will be held at Lee Lohman Arena on November 6 at 6:30 p.m. SAU will take on Waldorf.

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