HELENA, Mont. - It took a gut-check or two, but the Lewis-Clark State College women's volleyball team found a way to defeat Carroll College on Thursday night and in the process won its second straight Frontier Conference regular-season title.
After rolling to victories in the first two games against Carroll by scores of 25-17, 25-23, the Warriors ran into all sorts of trouble and dropped the next two games 25-13, and 25-16 Thursday night. With Carroll having the momentum and the hometown crowd behind it, the Warriors bounced back and scored five of the final six points in the final game for a 15-10 triumph and claim the win.
"They had momentum big time," LCSC assistant coach Burdette Greeny said. "We were able to get the early lead in the fifth game, but they came back and tied it at 10-10. We had people step up. Julie Maciboba seemed to say to herself we are not going to lose this game and stepped up and had some big kills."
The victory pushes LCSC, ranked No. 11 in the NAIA, to 25-1 overall and 12-1 in conference play. Carroll falls to 8-5 in league and 18-8 overall.
LCSC started the match out well, hitting .423 in the first game.
"We played well and passed well to start with," Greeny said. "And then we kind of squeaked by in the second game."
The third game, however, saw LCSC hit a season-worst negative-.125 in the match with six kills and 10 hitting errors.
"We haven't had many games like that," Greeny said. "They started to get momentum and took it to us the next two games."
The Warriors were forced to a fifth game for only the fourth time this season and Greeny said the coaching staff reminded the team the Warriors were 3-0 in such games.
"We really had to scrap to get by and I think that's the way it's going to be for us from here on out," Greeny said. "Carroll beat us in just about every statistic. They hit .288 to our .181, but we did have more service aces."
Anile Clemente led the Warriors with 17 kills, while Maciboba added 11 and Lauryn Herrick seven. Lisa Davis had 21 assists, while Kim Fong added 12 along with two service aces. Maciboba and Lindsay Scott also had two aces apiece, and Scott had 15 digs, while Katie Hinrichs had 12, and Clemente 11.
The win marked the third time LCSC has won the conference title since in joined the league in 1999. It also won the title the first year.
