Lady Bisons win close encounter against Bruins by 3-2: Volleyball
Thursday, October 6, saw a thrilling encounter between two top teams in the Atlantic Sun Belt at Allen Arena in Nashville Tennessee. The Belmont Bruins crossed their ways with archrivals Lipscomb Bisons in the first meeting of 2011 season and delivered a
close macth by winning it 3-2.
A crowd of 1,053 spectators witnessed the cracking action and created a lively atmosphere in the competition hall as the two teams extended their rivalry and staged a five-set thriller ended in a 3-2 (20-25, 25-23, 20-25, 25-13, 15-13) victory over Bruins
and improved their conference record to 5-0 and overall 11-6 in the season. The loss against Bisons snapped a seven match winning streak for the Bruins, who had previously captured 11 of their last 12 matches.
Katie Rose of Bisons led the scores with 20 kills and a match-high hitting percentage of .474. Outside hitter Lauren Ford and middle blocker Jewell Dobson were equally effective on the centre court. They added 15 and 13 kills, respectively. Belmont’s senior
Maggie Johnson recorded 21 kills, while sophomore Jen Myer registered 12 kills and 14 digs. The setter and libero of Bruins did exceptionally well. Hannah Miranda, the setter, finished with 44 assists, whereas libero Jamie Lundstrom added match-high 28 digs.
The match was opened with balanced action from both sides. Lady Bruins started out well and earned a better position in the first set. Bisons tried to resist but could not avoid the loss of the first set, 20-25.
After dropping the opening set, Lady Bisons hit back aggressively and did almost everything to cover the deficit. Bruins, on the other hand, were not ready to lose their spot and competed well. Both sides traded leads but finally Bisons closed off the second
set with 2-point margin at 25-23.
The see-saw battle continued as Bruins won third set (25-20) but Lady Bisons did not let them get away and created the dead-lock of 2-2 by winning fourth set (25-13). Continuing with the same spirit, Bisons hit the mark with fifth set win and claimed 3-2
victory in the match.
Deane Webb, the Head Coach of Belmont Bruins, praised the good effort of both teams. He said both sides played with great energy and put lot of emotions into the match. However, he congratulated Lady Bisons for getting lucky and winning the match. Giving
his analysis of the match in detail, he stated: “We were pretty even in serve receive and swings, but they were clearly better in transition. They did a great job of working hard after a ball was defended to transition back and strike. Obviously, as a team,
just defending and serve receiving in such a way that allowed them to get 70 plus swings by their middles, that's just a tremendous job by their back row to give them that many opportunities."
In the next run, both teams will travel to Jacksonville for matches against North Florida and Jacksonville this coming Friday and Saturday. Moreover, the Bruins and Bisons will meet again at the end of this month as Belmont is scheduled to play against Lipscomb
at the Curb Event Centre on Tuesday, Oct. 25th.
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