The Lady Bisons took the first of back-to-back games against Kennesaw State in a dominating 3-0 sweep.
Coming into the game, the Owls were undefeated with 10 wins, all in the ASUN. The Lady Bisons went into the game with 10-2 record, 7-1 record in the conference.
The top two teams in the conference came out with speed and aggressiveness.
They traded blows, but Lipscomb took an early lead 9-4 benefitting from two Samantha Rubal kills. The Owls upped the defensive intensity with a few consecutive blocks to cut it to 9-7. Lipscomb held the lead till the late part of the set until the teams found themselves tied at 23. Kennesaw State players Claire Parsons and Dani Ballou both scored two kills leading to the tie game. The set ended with a 25-23 score in the Lady Bisons favor after a Kamryn Bacus kill and a double touch on the Owls.
In contrast, the second set was all Lipscomb from the first serve. The Lady Bisons started with a 4-0 burst including a Garrett Joiner kill and Megan Kuper ace. Throughout the set, the Lady Bisons’ offense was very effective, and the Owls struggled with errors. The Lady Bisons led by as many as 11 in this set and led by a score of 21-10 at one point, finishing the set in a dominant fashion by a score of 25-13. The biggest separating factor after two sets was hitting percentage, with the Lady Bisons at .273 and the Owls only at a .074 clip.
After losing two sets for just the second time this season, Kennesaw State buckled down and sharpened their play in the third set. The Owls came out to a hot start going up 7-3 with their seventh point being just their first ace of the day. They led the ASUN in aces coming into the contest. After a few blows back and forth of teams trading kills and blocks, Lipscomb fought back to cut the score to 8-6. The battle continued with the Owls responding with a three-point flurry. The Lady Bisons responded once again to tie the game 12-12 off the solid play of Meg Mersman scoring three consecutive kills.
The back end of the third set is when the game got even more compelling with a nail-biter to finish. The Owls came out of the 15-point break and took a 20-15 lead over Lipscomb. Right when it looked like the Owls would stretch out the lead, the Lady Bisons capitalized on two Owl errors and followed up with a Kamryn Bacus kill to make the score 20-18. The Owls scored two straight points in response before a Rosenthal timeout to settle his team down. Coming out of the timeout, the Lady Bisons outscored the Owls 6-2 tying the game at 24. Ultimately it was an attack error from the Owls to set up a match point for Lipscomb and a Kamryn Bacus kill to seal the deal. The final score in the third set was 27-25.
Kamryn Bacus led the team with 10 kills and three players contributed seven kills. Alyssa Zwolensky had a team-high 13 digs and Delaney Dilfer contributed 8 digs. Dilfer led all players with 34 assists on the night. The Lady Bisons can enjoy this one for the night as they rest and prepare to try and do it again tomorrow. ESPN+ will be broadcasting the game tomorrow starting at 6 p.m.