CLEVELAND, Tenn. - The Lee University volleyball team had to feel like the fisherman who let the big catch get away after it suffered a five-set 25-17, 25-23, 22-25, 22-25, 10-15 defeat to visiting University of West Florida on Friday evening at Walker Arena. The deeply disappointing loss dropped the Lady Flames to 11-8 in GSC play and 15-13 overall. The Argonauts improved to 17-2, 24-2.
Lee will return to action on Saturday afternoon at 5 p.m. and will be hosting Valdosta State University. Lee is currently in fourth place tied with Valdosta State. The team in fourth will get a bye into the quarterfinal round the GSC tournament. If Lee wins, they will be the #fourth seed, the University of Montevallo the fifth seed and Valdosta State the sixth seed. If VSU wins, they will be four, Lee will be five, and Montevallo six..
The Lady Flames were totally in control the first two sets, hitting 76% in the first set and an even better 79% in the second set. The Argonauts regrouped after the first two sets and made adjustments. Lee's hitting mark dropped to 45% in the third set and picked back up to 64% in set four but it wasn't enough.
Payton Danley paced the Lee attack with 14 kills and a .323 attack percentage. Sophia Lippert followed with 12 kills and three blocking assists. Esthefany Rabit turned in a solid performance with 10 kills, three service aces, one solo block and three blocking assists. Sara Palumbo had nine kills, two aces and 14 digs while Jordyn Butler also had nine kills. Naomi Hockless added three blocking assists as the Lady Flames had a total of 12 blocking assists for the contest.
Berra Soyler delivered 26 assists, and Sydney Sharpe totaled 20 assists and also came up with 11 digs. Izzy Denton was the dig leader with 19 and contributed two service aces while Mikayla Buhr joined in with 11 digs.
The Argonauts were led by Aniston Cochran with 15 kills and a .483 attack mark. Kumara Flanagain had 11 kills and Emily Breazeale finished with 10 kills. All totaled, the Argos had 57 kills and Lee 58. Gabi Moulton was outstanding with 47 assists and 15 digs. Madalyn Mire was the team leader with 18 digs as West Florida had 69 total digs to 70 for the Lady Flames. In the blocking department, Cochran was again tough at the net with one solo block and five blocking assists.
Coach Christa Fabre's thoughts:
"A hard fought match tonight from both teams. I absolutely loved the way our team started out against the number one seed in our conference. We had control through the first two sets and played with conviction. They are a good team and adjusted well to our hitters, slowly chipping away at our offensive net play. Different aspects of our game broke down but we have so much that we get to learn from this match to take us into post season play. We need to take care of business tomorrow and continue to focus on the process of learning and growth.
