HENDERSON — After celebrating their seniors, the Freed-Hardeman University Lady Lions volleyball team put up a spirited fight against the No. 10 University of the Cumberlands Patriots. Despite out-killing the guests 42-35, the Lady Lions fell to the league leaders 3-0 (25-14, 25-22, 25-22).
The Lady Lions (18-15, 3-9 MSC) fell behind early after a furious defensive statement by the guests who ran out to an 8-1 advantage before
Audrey Orton's kill opened up a run that ended with the Lady Lions trailing by just three points. The Lady Lions had their best set of hitting with a .255 percentage, but the early push by CU was too much to overcome and FHU lost the opener 25-14.
The Patriots (31-0, 11-0 MSC) took another early jump start by tallying six early unanswered points.
Avery Young had a pair of kills surrounding a smash by
Marija Milic to push the Lady Lions back to within two. After UC took an 18-15 lead, a flurry of Lady Lions got kills with Orton and Young being joined by
Morgan Jackson and
Allie Lowhorn to give the Lady Lions a 19-18 lead. After setting the score at 22-21 in favor of FHU, but the Patriots had a rally at the right time to score the final four points needed to win the second set 25-22.
A 6-1 run opened the third set for the Patriots before
Iza Wos tallied a kill to make the score 9-6 in favor of the guests. Orton tallied kills to pull the Lady Lions within one point on three different rallies, but a Pat block and a service ace helped push to the final point with UC winning the set 25-22 and the match 33-0.
Audrey Orton led FHU with 15 kills while
Autumn Howard had 13 digs followed by 11 from
Avery Young.
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Up Next
With the regular season in the books, FHU will now wait to learn their draw for the Mid-South Conference tournament in Bowling Green, Kentucky held from November 13-15
