CLINTON, Miss. – Nothing comes easy on the road in the Gulf South Conference play, but the Lee University volleyball team found a way to post a key victory over host Mississippi College inside the AE Wood Colliseum on Saturday afternoon. After falling in the first set, the Lady Flames came fighting back to take the last three and walk away with the 3-1 (13-25, 30-28, 25-16, 25-22) victory.
The Lady Flames improved to 9-7 in the GSC and 13-12 overall while the Choctaws dropped to 6-9, 9-19. Lee will close out the remainder of the regular season inside Walker Arena. They will host rival Trevecca Nazarene University on Thursday (6 p.m.) and turn right around on Friday and entertain the Auburn University Montgomery (6 p.m.).
Coach Christa Fabre can certainly classify the decision as a team victory. Playing with a couple of its key players out of the lineup most of the afternoon, several teammates stepped up. Esthefany Rabit turned in an all-around performance with six kills, four service aces and six solo blocks. All totaled, the Lady Flames had a total of 11 solo blocks according to the Choctaw stats.
Sara Palumbo was the kill leader with 10. She also had eight digs. Jasmine Terry and Jordyn Butler followed with eight kills each. Sydney Sharpe had one of her top performances of the year with 16 assists, three aces and 11 digs. Butler was also listed with a pair of solo blocks while Naomi Hockless, Terry and Payton Danley had one solo apiece. Danley did not play after the first set and Sophia Lippert did not reenter the contest after the first two sets. Izzy Denton was the dig leader with 14. Berra Soyler added 11 assists and joined Denton and Kennedy Knight with one ace each.
For the Choctaws, Meg Paparella had 12 kills while Mary Grace Foster contributed nine kills, 13 assists and three aces. Sophia Saxon dished off a team-leading 22 assists and added 12 digs while Samarin Kipple led the Choctaws in digs with 13.
Lee won the match despite Mississippi College having four more kills (44-40), four more assists (42-38) and two more digs (54-52). The Lady Flames led in the service aces department (10-9) and in solo blocks (11-9).
Coach Christa Fabre's thoughts:
"I'm so proud of our team! Again, a slow start, but we had a really gritty win in the second set after a good bit of adversity. We are working through nagging injuries, and it was so good to see our team step up for each other. It wasn't always clean volleyball but we took care of business when we needed to."
