The Alma College volleyball team were swept by Hope 3-0 (19-25, 22-25, 17-25) at the Art Smith Arena on Friday night in MIAA conference play. With the loss, the Scots drop to 9-9 on the year and 4-5 in conference games. The Fighting Dutch improve to 17-1 overall with a 7-1 mark in MIAA games and remain behind Calvin for second place in the league standings.

"We have really come a long way since the first time we faced Hope," said Alma Head Coach Sarah Dehring. " We are continuing to improve our consistency, which is what we need. We were really able to feed off the crowd, it was great to see the pride of the Scots in full force in the crowd and on the court!"

Hope jumped out to an early 5-2 lead in the first set, and despite solid play by Alma, kept the three-point advantage throughout most of the set and claimed the 25-19 set victory.

The Scots found themselves down 0-3 to start the second set but battled back to take a 10-9 lead. Alma had a 19-18 lead late in set two but the Fighting Dutch would answer back and claim the set 25-22.

Hope started the third set with a 4-0 lead and stretch the advantage to seven at 12-5. The Scots reponded and took a 20-15 lead late but the Fighting Dutch ended the set scoring three straight to take the set 25-17 and the match 3-0.

Fr. OH/DS Sasha Laykova (Ternopil, Ukraine/Forest Hills Northern) led Alma with eight kills and Sr. DS/L Danae Sietsema (Grandville/Grandville) recorded a team-high 15 digs. Sr. S Erika VanHavel (Mason/Mason) had a team-best 11 assists and Jr. OH/DS Laura Walker (Roscommon/Roscommon) added five kills and five digs in the loss.

Anna Lynch had a match-high 11 kills for Hope and Lauren Hazenkemp paced the attack with 36 digs on Friday.

The Scots take the court on Saturday, Oct. 5, to take on conference-leading Calvin on the road at  1 p.m.