by George Wong | Oct 3, 2015 | News Slider, Sports
The Lady Bisons defeated the Stetson Hatters 3-0 in the first Atlantic Sun Conference home match Friday night in Allen Arena. Lipscomb won set one 25-18, set two 25-19 and set three 25-11. “The focus of our girls was fantastic from the very first point,” Lipscomb coach Brandon Rosenthal said, according to Lipscomb Athletics. “We have seen it in practice. We saw it Tuesday night [in a loss to Western Kentucky].” Right side senior Brittnay Estes and outside hitter freshman Lauren Anderson performed effectively with 11 kills a piece. Libero sophomore Brittany Thomas had a match-high 16 digs. Freshmen Hannah Hutcheson, Carli Anderson and Marcella Emmanuelli debuted in their first home match, with kills from both Hutcheson and Anderson. “I think we frustrated Stetson early,” Rosenthal said. “From there, and really in set two, we did a fantastic job of picking up balls. Everything they threw our way we were on it. I told them to go out and play their game and they did.” The Lady Bisons will return to Allen Arena Sunday afternoon to play Florida Gulf Coast University in an A-Sun match. Photo courtesy of Lipscomb...
by George Wong | Sep 5, 2015 | News Slider, Sports
The Lady Bisons remain undefeated this season after a 3-1 win over the Pepperdine Waves, extending their winning streak to five matches. Tension filled Allen Arena as the Lipscomb Invitational got its second stream of matches underway. Both teams came into the match undefeated after wins against Ball State and Florida Atlantic. After a slow start in a tense first set, the Bisons regained composure. “We came together at the beginning and we were pushing and pushing, but Pepperdine is so calm when they play and they keep going and digging balls, which deflated us a bit during the second set,” senior Brittnay Estes said. “We then realized that we have to play our way, which is energetic, exciting, screaming and pushing when we win points.” The Lady Bisons lost some momentum during the latter stages of the second set, but bounced back and won the match (25-22, 23-25, 25-21, 25-23). Lipscomb played their first home match of the season this Friday afternoon, defeating Ball State 3-1. The Bisons will prepare for their final match of the Lipscomb Invitational against Florida Atlantic at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday afternoon. “We are going to get a lot of rest, some video analysis and come out intense playing our away and that’s the way we are going to win games,” Estes said. Photo courtesy of Lipscomb...
by George Wong | Sep 4, 2015 | News Slider, Sports
The Lady Bisons continued to dominate their season after defeating the Ball State Cardinals 3-1 for the Lipscomb Invitational on Friday afternoon in Allen Arena. Ball State came out firing, winning the tightly contested first set. The Bisons regained composure and momentum to defeat the Cardinals. “We served a lot better throughout the match — they are a tough defensive team and applied a lot of defensive pressure to us,” head coach Brandon Rosenthal said. The Lady Bisons started their quest with a 3-0 record for the first time in program history, after defeating the No. 46 CSUN Matadors, No. 97 Idaho State Bengals and No. 37 Utah Utes over the weekend. “We came out with a really good attitude protecting our house and didn’t let last weekend affect us,” senior Jewell Dobson said. “We built on the momentum. It’s also good when you have a lot of players on the team who can put the ball away. I think with every game we keep learning how to keep composure and finish games.” The three other schools competing in the Lipscomb Invitational include Ball State University, Florida Atlantic University and Pepperdine University. FAU and Ball State will face each other at 5 p.m. followed by the Lady Bison’s who will play Pepperdine at 7:30 p.m. “Ultimately it comes down to the girls — when they are ready to go after rest and switch gears,” Rosenthal said. “We are going to need to apply pressure early — I think we waited a little too late in that first match. Pepperdine is a very efficient team and we’re going to have to play our own game...
by George Wong | Aug 27, 2015 | News Slider, Sports
Lipscomb’s volleyball team will begin the quest to improve on last year’s successful season at the season-opening Utah Classic in Salt Lake City this weekend. And the challenge to improve on last season is not an easy one, since the Lady Bisons won the Atlantic Sun Conference and recorded 21 wins and 9 losses, finishing ranked No. 39 at NCAAs a year ago. Having that second best rank in the Lipscomb volleyball program history places a lot of expectations and added pressure to do even better this year, according to some of the freshmen. “There is definitely pressure, the women’s volleyball team has always had a pretty good past, so coming into the season you just have that automatic expectation from the coaches and teammates,” freshman Carlyle Nusbaum said. The Lady Bisons have added six freshmen this year. Carli Anderson, Calayci Coffey, Hannah Hutcheson, Lauren Anderson, Marcella Emmanuelli and Nusbaum were recruited by head coach Brandon Rosenthal, who said all the new players performed at a high level in club and high school volleyball. “They are all very explosive, which suits our game style and program,” Rosenthal said. “They are still very young, so the experience level needs to improve, which will come from playing a lot of matches.” The new players said that in addition to experience, they believe team bonding is essential to success. “We do a lot of team building activities, trying to build close relationships with each other, because that makes such a difference when we play together,” Hutcheson said. “We have worked really hard as a team up until this point just to be competitive with all the different schools...
