CLEVELAND, Tenn.-Five-set matches have not been kind to the Lee University volleyball team. The Lady Flames have already played in four contests that went into the fifth set this season and have dropped all four. The latest came on Saturday afternoon in a heart-breaking 3-2 (25-20, 25-23, 13-25, 21-25. 15-13) GSC loss to visiting University of Montevallo inside Walker Arena.
The defeat dropped Lee to 1-2 in conference play and 7-8 overall while the Falcons improved to 2-1, 5-8. The Lady Flames will return to road action for three straight matches beginning on Tuesday evening when they face Union University where Coach Christa Fabre was the former assistant coach.
Lee got off to a slow start in the first set and quickly fell behind before regrouping, but the Falcons moved onto post the first-set win. The Lady Flames gained the upper hand in the second set only to see Montevallo fight back to go up 2-0.
Coach Fabre regrouped her forces in the third set and the Lady Flames posted a convincing 25-13 win and then forced the fifth set with a hard-fought 25-21 decision. The short set went down to the wire before the Falcons were able to return to the Birmingham area with a key conference victory.
Although the Lady Flames had two more kills than the Falcons (59-57) and a better hitting percentage (.260-.200), Montevallo rode the outstanding play of Nikol Antova to the win. The outside hitter had 25 kills and a hitting mark of .512. No other Falcon had double-digit kills. Colton Thompson set Antova up with 28 assists. With Claire Hayes leading the way with five blocks, Montevallo had 22 and Lee had 16.
Lee freshman Berra Soyler dished off a career high 51 assists and Sara Palumbo had a solid performance with 22 kills and a .250 attack mark. Her 11 digs gave her a double-double. Freshman Payton Danley stood out with 10 kills, seven blocks and a .476 hitting percentage.
Carmen Perez gave the Lady Flames three players in double-figure kills with 12. She also had a double-double by adding 10 digs. Grace Mazzocca followed with eight slams (.350 hitting) and freshman Brynna Sands stepped up with seven kills and a .294 attack percentage. Izzy Denton went to the deck for a team-leading 21 digs. For the second straight match, the Flames played without middle hitter Naomi Hockless, who is suffering from a concussion and hopes to be back for Tuesday's match at Union.
Coach Christa Fabre's thoughts:
"Tough loss today. We are getting great experience for our young players in how to handle the big moments. We started off the match flat and gave away the first two sets, something that is really challenging to come back from."
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Our blocking on the right struggled against their big hitter and we gave up too many runs in the short game to 15 in that last set. We have got to learn to be tough pretty quickly in conference play, one strong opponent after another and there are fast turn arounds. We are ready for this team to take care of business on the road."
