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Lebanon Valley Rallies, Beats E-town In Five
Box
Score
ANNVILLE, Pa. - Lebanon Valley and Elizabethtown
have played some classics over the past four years. Tuesday night's
Commonwealth Conference opener was more of the same.
Paced by an 18-kill night by Jamie
Hawk, the Flying Dutchmen rallied from a 2-1 deficit to
win their sixth five-setter of the season, 3-2 (16-25, 25-20,
15-25, 25-14, 15-6), over CC preseason favorite Elizabethtown on
Wednesday night.
LVC (7-2) rode superb serving in the final two sets after a rough
start to the match, wearing down a Blue Jay (0-7) team that had
gone up 2-1 with a decisive 25-15 third-set victory. The win gives
LVC an early leg up in the conference standings; LVC and E-town
have met in the last four CC finals, with Lebanon Valley being the
three-time defending champion.
Hawk's 18 kills continued her great start to the season as she hit
.316, and Nicole
Barra added 10 kills while the freshman trio of Kellsie
Groff, Kayla
Confer, and Krystal
Wirey had seven apiece. Kacey
Musselman put up 48 assists with five kills and 12 digs
in an all-around effort.
Lindsay Palm led the Jays with 13 kills, hitting .500 for the
match. Andrea Weaver had 31 digs, and Carolyn Lukiewski put up 34
assists. The Blue Jays served very well, committing just one
error.
After dropping the first set 25-16, LVC bounced back for a 25-20
second-set win before struggling in a 25-15 third-set loss. Things
quickly turned around in the fourth, keyed by a seven-point serving
run by Angela
Kuperavage that turned an 11-10 E-town lead into a 16-11
LVC advantage on the way a 25-14 win.
The fifth set was all LVC after an early 3-0 spurt on Musselman's
serve put LVC up 5-2. The Dutchmen hung in with kills by Musselman,
Confer, and Wirey to take a 10-6 lead and force a Blue Jay timeout,
then finished the match on a 6-0 run with Groff serving and Wirey
hitting three kills with a block in that span.
The Dutchmen are back at The Gym Friday to host the LVC Quad
starting against Cabrini at 5:30 p.m.
