HELENA, Mont. – In a battle between the top two teams in the Frontier Conference standings, the Lewis-Clark State College volleyball team was defeated by Carroll College in four games on Saturday. The Saints bested the Warriors 25-20, 17-25, 25-21, 25-21.
The win puts Carroll atop the conference standings with a 6-1 league mark and a 15-5 record overall, while the Warriors now stand at 5-2 and 12-6. The Warriors were riding an eight-match winning streak before falling to Rocky Mountain on Thursday and Carroll on Saturday.
While a negative-.039 hitting percentage was to blame for the Warriors’ loss to Rocky, Warrior head coach Jen Greeny attributed Saturday’s downfall mostly to the caliber of the opponent.
“We knew going into it that this was going to be a great team,” said Greeny. “We made some crucial errors at the wrong time and let them go on some runs, but credit to them—they are a great offensive team.”
The Warriors hit .195 on the match, but were out-swung by the Saints’ .270 mark. Carroll hit over .300 in every set with the exception of the second during which they hit .051 to LCSC’s .175.
“They have four or five really good hitters and that makes it tough for both our blockers and our defense.”
Sammy Priddy led Carroll’s charge with 17 kills and a .325 hitting percentage, and she was backed by Kayla Hughes who swung for 12 kills and an impressive mark of .423. Three others Saints also had five or more kills including Haylee Otteson who notched eight kills with a percentage of .545.
LCSC’s offense was led by Anile Clemente and Lauryn Herrick who finished with 14 and 10 kills, respectively. Jenika Bird also added nine kills and two blocks.
Lisa Davis and Abby Bruya shared the setting duties for LCSC as Davis finished with 22 assists and Bruya collected 18. Katie Hinrichs led the Warriors with 22 digs, while Clemente had 18.
With the first half of the conference season now in the books, LCSC will use the mid-season buy week to prepare for the second half which will feature four of its seven remaining conference matches played at home. The Warrior’s next match will be at the LCSC Activity Center against Montana Western on Oct. 15 at 7 p.m.
