CLEVELAND, Tenn. - For the second straight evening and for the sixth time this season, it has taken five sets for the Lee University volleyball team to win or lose a match. The young and exciting ladies of Coach Christa Fabre lost their first four five setters, but battled to post back-to-back Gulf South Conference five set victories on Thursday and Friday evenings.
The nail-biting affair with Auburn University Montgomery on Friday inside Walker Arena shifted from one side to the other. The Lady Flames got off to a slow start and dropped the first set 25-19, but regrouped to claim the second set 19-25. AUM rallied right back with a 25-20 win to go up 2-1. After the break it was Lee's turn, pinning a 22-25 loss on the WarHawks to force the action packed and short fifth set.
The Lady Flames found themselves down 12-7 and Coach Fabre used both of her timeouts in engineering the comeback. As Lee fought back, AUM's staff then used both of its timeouts. The short set went into extra points before Julia Davis came up with a kill on her birthday to give the Lady Flames the thrilling fifth set win, 17-15.
Carmen Perez had a career high in kills (20) and an attack mark of .281 to pace the Lee win. The gifted sophomore recorded a double-double with 13 digs. It took Sara Palumbo a while to get going but once she did the talented freshman also had a double-double 19 kills, 17 digs. Overall it took a season-high in team kills (66) to produce the victory. Naomi Hockless went to the net for eight kills and four blocks. Payton Danley finished with seven slams and Davis added five.
Kills do not happen without plays from the setters. Berra Soyler and Madison Dahl had 27 assists each as the Lady Flames established a new season-high in team assists (64). Izzy Denton chipped with 16 digs to the winning total. On the negative side Fabre's club will have plenty to work with after having 14 service errors.
AUM basically had a two lady wrecking crew. Maya Thompson proved to be unstoppable most of the evening with 19 kills, a .395 hitting percentage and seven blocks. Greta Corrente followed with 13 kills and Savannah Sebek stood out overall with 22 assists, four aces and 12 digs.
The Lady Flames improved to 5-3 in GSC play and 11-9 overall. The WarHawks dropped to 1-5, 4-11. Coach Fabre will allow her team time to relax and then prepare to host league-leading West Florida next Friday at 6 p.m. and Valdosta State one week from Saturday at 2 p.m.
Coach Fabre's Thoughts:
"We have been trying to drill into our team that their is no moment that is too big. We love these moments because we aren't just reaching for the win of fearing the loss, we are playing the point in front of us. Tonight we turned up defensively when we needed to. I am proud to see them come back in the fifth set. That is really hard to do."
