West Lafayette volleyball team prevails in early test against Lafayette Jeff

West Lafayette’s volleyball team always uses its early season matchup against Lafayette Jeff as a gauge.

For the second year in a row, the Red Devils left a match against the Bronchos with some confidence.

Katy Brose and Grace Malone helped lead a defensive effort that was the difference in WL’s 27-25, 25-23, 17-25, 25-23 win at Crawley Center.

“I think this is a huge confidence booster because we know if we have (close matches) in the future that we’ve won them before,” Brose said.

The Red Devils (5-2) led 23-17 in the fourth set before the Bronchos scored five straight. Tasha Baker, who had a pair of hitting errors during Jeff’s 5-0 run, responded with a strong spike to set up match point. Becca Mimms eventually put the match away with a big kill of her own.

“Every time I mess up, in my head, it’s like I have to make up for what I just did and I think everyone on our team does the same thing,” said Baker, who had 13 kills and 16 digs. “That’s what gets us over the low points in our games.”

Baker also had a kill with the Red Devils facing set point in the first that began a 3-0 West Lafayette run.

The Bronchos scored more points in the match, but after forcing a fourth game, Jeff fell behind 9-2 and never caught up.

“We kind of lost sight in what we were there for,” said setter Connor Garrity, who had 32 assists and 12 digs. “We saw how easily we could beat them and then we thought we could do this. Then we got down on ourselves and made a couple of bad plays and got a little more tense.”

Megan Isbell’s 16 kills led Jeff (5-2), and Megan Isbell added 10. Auna McGaughey and Madison Flanagan each had 14 digs.

Brose collected 11 kills and 10 digs, Sarah Collicott contributed 10 kills and six blocks.