The #14 IMS volleyball team won it’s first round regional match Tuesday night on the road, sweeping Montezuma. IMS took game one 25-19, pulling away from the Bravettes following a time out with the score at 19-18. Iowa Mennonite controlled game two throughout winning 25-14 and jumped out to a 9-3 lead in the third and final game before finishing off Montezuma at 25-19. IMS was able to advance despite inconsistent play at times, especially from the service line. Following the match Head Coach Dwight Gingerich was happy with the outcome but said the performance leaves things to work on to prepare for the next round.

“We had a little trouble in game one, through the night even with serving, you get a little lead and then a missed serve and sometimes that is a momentum killer, and Montezuma does some good things. We self inflicted [points on ourselves], we had a time out there when it was 19-18, and I just said, ‘how many of those 18 do you think is a result of our errors,’ and to me it felt like it was two-thirds,” Gingerich said. “I thought we had stretches that we played really well, and then we would let up, it was just that kind of match, you pull ahead by seven or eight points and then the intensity disappears a little bit.”

On the night IMS was led by Olivia Yutzy’s 18 kills. Casey Perez added 24 assists and seven aces. Defensively Hannah Miller had 11 digs and Kristen Davis had 10, while Natalie Graber posted three blocks. With the win IMS is now 24-9 on the year and will play HLV in the regional quarterfinals Tuesday night in Victor. HLV was a three games to one winner over English Valleys Tuesday night in round one.