The Forester volleyball team improved to 4-3 in Midwest Conference play with a 25-16, 15-25, 25-10, 25-23 victory at Knox College on Saturday.
Lake Forest junior Madison Stevens set a career-high and led all players in the contest with 13 kills. She added three aces and finished the afternoon with a .333 hitting percentage. Freshman Rebekkah De Kok and sophomore Mary Gegen also reached double figures with 11 and 10 kills, respectively, while freshman setter Juli Barrientos tallied 33 assists.
Forester junior Izzi Visnjevac posted match-highs with 27 digs and five aces. Senior Kaity Mueller added 11 digs while Gegen and Barrientos chipped in with 10 apiece. Gegen's double-double was her fifth of the season and the sixth of her career. She also had a career-high five blocks.
Already leading 13-10, the visitors used an 8-0 run to pull away in set one. A kill and an ace by Stevens finished it off.
Knox won 11 of the first 15 points and ran away with the second set.
Lake Forest responded with another 8-0 run to begin set three. The Prairie Fire won consecutive points just once in the set as the Foresters rolled.
Set four was close throughout. Knox broke a 12-12 tie with a five-point run but Lake Forest quickly came back and tied the score at 19. The teams were tied again at 10, 21, and 22 before back-to-back points by the Foresters brought them to within a point of victory and, after the home team closed to within one, another Stevens kill finished off the match.
Lake Forest improved to 8-17 overall on the season while the Prairie Fire fell to 8-12 overall and 3-5 in the league.
The Foresters will close out the season at Grinnell College next Saturday, where they will finish off their conference schedule against the hosts at 11:00 a.m. before taking on Knox again in a non-conference match at 1:00 in the afternoon.
