On Wednesday evening, the #5 ranked Calvin Knights came calling to Art Smith Arena to take on the Alma College Volleyball team in a MIAA contest. The Scots lost to the Knights by a margin of 3-0 (15-25, 14-25, 22-25) to fall to 4-3 in the league and 8-10 overall. Calvin improved to 6-1 in the MIAA and 14-3 in 2014.

"Calvin is a very good team and you can easily see why they are ranked fifth in the country," said Alma Head Coach Sarah Dehring. "To be competitive against them, you have to play a very solid game from start to finish.

"Early on, our ball control was really not good and they took advantage of it. In the third set, we played much better, but they had an 11 point run that we could not recover from - we must avoid those sort of stretches."

In the first set, Alma led 7-6 and then trailed 11-10 later in the frame. However, the Knight outscored the host team 14-5 from there and sailed to the 25-15 win. Set two saw Calvin jump to a 6-0 advantage before Alma settled, cutting the deficit to 11-7. It was a 21-14 set before the Knights tallied the final four points to garner the 25-14 triumph.

The Scots were not going to lose the match without a fight and jumped out to a 3-0 in the third set and then 7-2, forcing a Calvin timeout. However, the talented Knights recovered out of the break and scored 11 consecutive points to lead 13-7.

Alma would cut it to two twice, the last being 18-16 before Calvin made a final push. With the set sitting at 24-20, the Scots scored two in row before the Knights closed it out with the final point, winning 25-22.

Jr. OH/DS Hannah Guilford (Hartland/Hartland) had a team-high eight kills, while So. S Mary Dulzo (Novi/Mercy) paced the Scots with 15 assists. Guilford and So. DS/L Molly Lark (Middleville/Thornapple-Kellogg) each had 11 digs for Alma in the loss. So. OH/DS Sasha Laykova (Ternopil, Ukraine/Forest Hills Northern) contributed a team-best two blocked shots to go with seven digs and four kills.

Alma will next play on Saturday afternoon, when they travel to Hiram College for a tri-match. The Scots will play Denison College at 3:00 p.m. before taking on the host Greyhounds at 5:00 p.m.