ORLANDO, Fla. – The Lee University volleyball team battled back from a slow start in the first set to force four sets against powerful Nova Southeastern University in their final match of the South Region Crossover staged at the Game Point Event Center on Saturday afternoon. The set scores read 13-25, 29-27, 25-23, 25-16. It was the first time the Sharks of the Sunshine State Conference had been pushed to a fourth game by a member of the Gulf South Conference. Earlier Nova Southeastern had defeated Auburn University Montgomery and the University of West Florida 3-0, 3-0.

 In Saturday's second set win, the Lady Flames battled back and forth with the Sharks. Coach Christa Fabre ordered a timeout after Nova posted four straight points. Suddenly, the Lady Flames tallied four straight points of their own and the Shark coach ordered a TO. With the set deadlocked at 27 apiece, Carmen Perez delivered an ace and Ashton Middleton tipped a shot across the net for the winning 29-27 decision.  

The third set was more of the same as the Lady Flames continued to fight before the Sharks were able to pull away to a 24-21 lead and then post the 25-23 set win. The two hard-fought sets seemed to take a bit out of Lee's team that had battled Florida Southern the night before. The Sharks took command early in the fourth set and Lee could never recover in the 25-16 loss. 

Abby Stroh had one of her top performances of the season with 14 kills and a .273 hitting mark. She also had seven digs. Allie Scurlock equaled Stroh's .273 attack percentage and had eight kills. Naomi Hockless added six slams while Middleton joined in with 20 assists and the winning kill in set two. Clarissa Soza was consistent with 16 assists and a pair of aces. Perez went to the deck for 11 digs and served up three aces. Kamryn Halpin totaled 10 digs. The Lady Flames finished with a solid .224 hitting percentage.  

Nova Southeastern's Taylor Stockman was the star of the show with 22 kills and a booming .656 hitting percentage. Nadia Lindner found a way to add 12 kills while Kate Mihacevich gave the Sharks three players in double-figure kills with 10. Gabrielle Sparkus set her teammates up with 29 assists and Madison Cook added 17 assists.  

The loss dropped the Lady Flames to 13-12 while Nova Southeastern improved to 13-6. Lee returns home on Wednesday and will host Christian Brothers at 6 p.m. and then it's back on the road next weekend to face Union University. 

Coach Christa Fabre's thoughts: 

"The Crossover is always a good and challenging weekend where we know we will face quality opponents. It's an opportunity to compete and learn about ourselves before heading back into the home stretch of our conference schedule. 

"It was great to take a sweep vs Saint Leo. We didn't play to our full potential vs Florida Southern and it's always disappointing when that's the case. Our match vs Nova was a great one for us to see more of what we are capable of, and then to also see the areas that we need to spend time on in practice. Our game plan going in was to slow down #13 (Nadia Lindner) and we actually did that well. She still had a decent amount of kills but we kept her to a .116 hitting percentage. However, we did not do a great job defending their right side, #7 (Taylor Stockman). 

"We can compete with the best of them and that's good to know going into our matches this week and up through the conference tournament."