The Lady Bison Volleyball team fought hard throughout the Lipscomb Invitational, but came up short in the end.
In the last match of the tournament, the Lady Bisons faced the Utes of Utah. The Pac-12 team beat Georgia Tech in three sets and ETSU in three, but Lipscomb took the Utes to four sets.
The team lost the first two sets right out of the gate. The first set 25-18 and the second 25-17, but going into the locker room head coach Brandon Rosenthal had a talk with his team to get them prepared for set three.
“There was a talk with the team. There’s an expectation that they’ve set, and it’s their responsibility to go after it,” Rosenthal said.
Following the first two sets, the Lady Bisons came out on fire to win the third set 25-15 becoming the first team in the tournament to take Utah to four sets. Despite their efforts, the Lady Bisons came up three points short in the final set losing 25-22; however, Rosenthal was pleased with the effort from his team.
“The talk after the match was just, hey I like what I saw,” Rosenthal said. “There is no chewing out or what not, well there was a little chewing out between two and three, but after the match, I mean, they gave me everything they had there in two and three, and that’s all you can ask for, and I’m really pleased with that.”
At the end of the match, the Lady Bisons had more kills than the Utes, but were out-blocked. Brittnay Estes led the team with 13 kills in the match, and Bri McCombs had 13 digs.
The Lady Bisons opened the tournament Friday night against Georgia Tech. The team took the match to five sets, but ended up losing 3-2. In set four the Lady Bisons rallied twice to win the set 26-24, but lost set five 15-6.
Only ETSU fell to Lipscomb this weekend. The Buccaneers, who left the Atlantic Sun Conference for the Southern Conference, beat the Lady Bisons 25-14 in the first set, but Lipscomb quickly punched back. The Lady Bisons won set two 25-22, set three 25-22 and finished off the match winning 25-18.
In that match, Lauren Ford had a match high with 21 kills. Estes added 17 kills. Kayla Ostrom had a season career high of 54 assists, and McCombs had a match high of 21 digs.
“Obviously we’d like to win a little bit more,” Rosenthal said. “But I thought what we did in the last two sets here is really important for us moving forward, and even as we got into the fourth set, I said this is another opportunity we have to get better, and I thought we did.”
With only two matches left before conference play, Rosenthal was pleased with the learning experience for the team.
“We did some really good stuff, and obviously we’re going through some things, reconfiguring, but this pre-conference is all about getting better and trying to dial things in.”
The Lady Bisons will play at the University of Kentucky Thursday Sept. 8 at 6 p.m. on the SEC Network.