LEWISTON, Idaho – The Lewis-Clark State College volleyball team rolled to its second consecutive sweep in as many days at the Activity Center on Saturday afternoon. This time the win was against Frontier Conference foe Montana Tech by a score of 25-21, 26-24, 25-16.
(Box Score)
With the win, LCSC improves to 2-0 in league play and 5-5 overall. Montana Tech, which has enjoyed a strong start to the season, falls to 1-1 and 11-3.
Similar to their win over Great Falls on Friday night, the Warriors featured a very strong attack and ended up outhitting the Orediggers .250 to .136. LCSC also established a dominant presence at the net and finished with eight and a half team blocks.
Right-side hitter Brianne Brown (pictured above) and outside hitter Treneisha Doyle seemed to be an unstoppable one-two punch. Brown, a senior from Spokane, Wash., had 10 kills, a team-high .476 hitting percentage, and four blocks; while Doyle, a freshman from Vancouver, Wash., had a team-high 13 kills, a .333 hitting clip, and two blocks.
“She’s another go-to person for us,” said LCSC head coach LaToya Harris about Brown. “She played well all around, and when someone plays well on one side, it opens up shots for the other side.”
The Warriors hit their highest percentage of .333 in the first set when they won six of the last eight volleys to break a 19-19 tie.
In the second, LCSC got off to a sluggish start and had to overcome a 12-4 deficit to get the win. Brianna Kelly started the second-set rally with a service ace followed by three straight Warrior points, and later in the set Kawena Puhi served eight straight points to tie it up at 20. The set ended with more strong Warrior serving as Kaylee Rector finished it with an ace.
LCSC had a 5-4 lead in service aces on the day, and Rector led the way with three.
The third and final set was the most lopsided as Tech hit a negative .029 and LCSC used a 10-2 run in the middle of the set to break away.
Besides Brown and Doyle, Kelly also had a good day on offense as she collected eight kills with a .350 hitting percentage. Shersteen Cline led the Orediggers with 12 kills.
Nevena Dragovic finished with a match-high 33 assists, while Montana Tech setter Alison Lunde had 28. Oredigger Kimmy Kavran led with 17 digs, though Rector wasn’t far behind as she had 16.
Chelsea Strong led LCSC’s blocking efforts and ended up with five blocks. Brown had four, and Keisha Luebbert-Kennedy had three.
Next week the Warriors will face two more conference opponents at home. They’ll play Westminster at 7 p.m. on Thursday, and then Montana Western at 2 p.m. on Saturday.
“I believe we’re pretty well rounded,” said Harris. “But after today there is still work to be done. We can’t expect our opponents to make errors—we have to keep on the attack.”
