Friday, September 23, 2011

MACON, Ga. – Having run through the past two seasons without a blemish on the conference record,  Lipscomb (6-6, 1-0 A-SUN) volleyball opened the 2012 Atlantic Sun campaign by picking up where they left off with a 3-0 (25-19, 25-23, 25-18) sweep of homestanding Mercer (4-10, 0-1 A-SUN) on Friday night in Macon, Ga.

“Overall a road win in conference is huge and I’m really pleased with the way the team played,” said Lipscomb head coach Brandon Rosenthal.  “Mercer came out with a new lineup in game one and I thought we handled that well.”

Senior Katie Rose and freshman Lauren Ford led the Lady Bisons offensively with Rose posting a .400 hitting percentage on the match with seven kills, while Ford added 11 kills.  Sophomore Stephanie Rex and Rose led things defensively for Lipscomb with Rex making 17 digs, while Rose notched 11.  Junior Kaycee Green paced the Lady Bisons with 13 kills.

“Hats off to Mercer, that is probably one of the loudest places I’ve ever coached.  It was hard to think and they got us out of our rhythm in the second game.  I’ve got to give credit to our girls.  To come back and win is tremendous. “

“We weren’t ever really nervous, we just had to calm down.  Good teams let bad plays go by and go on to the next one.  I though in the third set we dictated what was going on by our defensive effort.”

Lipscomb’s defense was stifling, holding the Bears to a .010 hitting percentage on the night.  The Lady Bisons meanwhile posted a .196 hitting percentage against the league’s best defensive team statistically.  

“Abby did a nice job of executing the game plan and our defense was tremendous.  We really got them out of their rhythm with our defensive effort.”

With the win, Lipscomb improves the nation's longest conference winning streak that dates back to 2008 to 36 games.

The Lady Bisons continue A-Sun road action on Saturday afternoon at Kennesaw State.  Fans can follow all the action of the 2 p.m. match live at http://www.asun.tv