Demons devastated in 5-set defeat

WASHINGTON — Through one set and 10 points of Washington’s Southeast Conference home game against Keokuk on Tuesday night, the Demons seemed to be dancing to an easy victory. As it turned out, however, that wouldn’t be the case at all.

Washington’s luck turned on a dime in the second set of what turned out to be a five-set thriller, one that was won by Keokuk 14-25, 25-20, 25-18, 21-25, 15-13.

Washington simply dominated the first set. The Demons jumped out to a hot start and commanded the game, even taking a 14-point lead when Elle Greiner sent an ace down to the Keokuk side of the floor.

After polishing off an 11-point win in the first set, the Demons were right back at it in the second. Washington rushed out to an 8-2 lead, and the Demon hitters had Keokuk spinning in circles, or so it seemed.

As Washington cruised, the team began to relax a bit, even making some early substitutions to mix up the rotation, but all of the sudden the Chiefs caught fire on the other side of the net.

Keokuk stormed back in the second, taking the lead and building it up to as much as 19-16. The Demons tied it up at 20-20, but Keokuk scored the last five to even up sets at 1-1.

“I will take 100 percent of the blame on that,” said Demon head coach Aaron Six. “That changed the overall mindset of everyone, and then once we lost set two, it was like, 'we just got punched in the face. Are we ready to respond?'”

Keokuk parlayed that momentum into a 25-18 win in Set 3, but the Demons struck back in the fourth. A trifecta of early kills by Ella Greiner and a big three-point run by Alex Murphy helped Washington cling onto a lead throughout most of the set. Keokuk cut that advantage to 19-18 late, but freshmen Leighton Messenger and Taylor Miksch combined for four points to help close out the game.

“That was one of the things we talked about, as far as being able to fight back,” Six said. “That was something that showed a lot of heart there, but we shouldn't have gotten ourselves in that position to begin with.”

Keokuk had the hot hand early in the deciding fifth set. Washington had to battled back from four points down on multiple occasions, including at 10-6.

The Demons came back to cut the lead to one point after Demon libero Ruby Witthoft’s diving dig set up a Maci Williams kill to cut the Keokuk lead to 14-13, but Keokuk found a hole on the next point and the Chiefs were able to celebrate.

Greiner led the Demons with eight kills in the loss. Murphy and Messinger had seven each. Messinger finished with a team-leading 29 digs. Greiner had 24, and Witthoft tallied 23.

Murphy ended the game with 3.5 blocks to lead the way. Greiner led the way with two aces.

Washington is now 4-11 overall and 1-1 in what promises to be a wild ride in the SEC. Six says his squad needs to hunker down for the rest of the conference season. The Demons are in Mt. Pleasant (2-10, 0-2) next Tuesday.

“We know that we can compete with anybody we play against, but we're not in a position where anybody is going to lay down for us,” Six said. We've got to play our game, do our things and take care of business.“