HARTSVILLE, S.C. – The Lincoln Memorial women's volleyball team fell short in its quest for the program's first-ever South Atlantic Conference tournament championship in a 17-25, 41-39, 11-25, 16-25 loss to the top-seeded Wingate Bulldogs on Saturday afternoon at the DeLoach Center.
The Bulldogs (30-1) dominated the opening set, but the Lady Railsplitters (20-9) responded with a gritty win in likely the longest set in program history to even things up after two frames. However, Wingate controlled the pace again in sets three and four to clinch its 11th tournament title in the past 13 years.
Lincoln Memorial has now lost all three of its appearances in the SAC tournament championship match to Wingate, who earns the league's automatic berth into the NCAA tournament. The Lady Railsplitters will have to wait to learn their postseason fate when the NCAA tournament selections are announced on Sunday at www.ncaa.com. Lincoln Memorial was ranked No. 7 in the most recent region rankings that were released on Wednesday.
LMU struggled to get much of anything going offensively, connecting on only 46 kills on a .106 attack percentage. By contrast, Wingate belted down 73 kills on a .250 clip to power its way to victory.
Tone Gill paced the LMU attack with 12 kills to go along with seven block assists, while
Lindsey Nartker had another double-double with 10 kills and 18 digs.
Rylee Storms chipped in eight kills, while
Alicia Kessler had seven with a team-high seven errors.
Erica Whiteaker led all players with 26 digs.
Abby Higgins (18) and
Emily Walter (15) combined for 33 of the team's 45 assists.
Four Bulldogs reached double-digit kills, led by Phoebe Havenaar's game-high 17. Taylor Williams finished with 13, Hannah Givens had 12 and Anne Abernathy added 10. Anna Holmquist was also a factor with 10 kills. SAC Player of the Year Rachel Alles was a monster with five kills, 57 assists, 16 digs and four block assists. Kori Adams led Wingate with 23 digs.
LMU hit .022 in the opening set while Wingate dropped down 14 kills on a .231 attack percentage to roll to a 25-17 victory. The Lady Railsplitters won the first two points of the set but never led again after an early 3-0 spurt for the Bulldogs.
The second set will likely go down as one of the wildest in program history as the two teams combined for 51 kills in a marathon 41-39 win for the Lady Railsplitters. And it should have never required that effort as the Lady Railsplitters were in complete control with an 18-3 lead until Wingate stormed all the way back to cut the deficit to 23-21.
A kill from Gill gave Lincoln Memorial a 24-21 lead but Wingate promptly won four straight rallies to earn an improbable chance at set point. Both teams had multiple chances at set point in a back-and-forth battle, but it wouldn't come to a close until a kill from Nartker ended it and drew the match level.
That's as good as it would get for the Lady Railsplitters, though, as an 8-1 run and another 6-0 spurt guided the Bulldogs to a 25-11 win in set three.
Lincoln Memorial led 4-1 early in set four, but the Bulldogs pulled ahead for good with a 13-2 run over the next passage in an eventual 25-16 match-clinching victory.
Wingate compiled 19 kills on a sizzling .349 mark in set three and hit .233 in set four, while the Lady Railsplitters combined for only 13 kills and hit below .030 in both frames.
