WISE, Va. – For the second-straight day, the Lincoln Memorial University women's volleyball team claimed a straight-set South Atlantic Conference match victory, doing so Saturday afternoon inside the David J. Prior Convocation Center in Wise, Virginia. The Lady Railsplitters (2-3, 2-0 SAC) took down host UVa-Wise (1-3, 0-2 SAC) 3-0 in their first road test of the season, remaining perfect in all six league sets played thus far.
 
Hitting at a blistering clip of .522 with only two attack errors in the opening set, LMU imposed its will on the home Cavaliers and maintained a .297 attack percentage for the match. Witnessing UVa-Wise commit 20 attack errors, the Lady Railsplitters held the Cavs to a hitting mark of .125 while racking up 40 kills.
 
Once again, LMU used very balanced attack with a heavy dose of senior leadership. Senior right side hitter Rylee Storms and fellow senior outside hitter Lindsey Nartker each posted nine kills as junior Missouri State-West Plains transfer middle hitter Yileen Ng He collected seven and freshman outside hitter Cate Hosenfeld contributed six. The Lady Railsplitters notched at least 12 kills in each set and earned back-to-back 25-17 set wins after taking the first set by three points, 25-22.
 
After UVa-Wise won four of the first five points of the match and held leads of 10-5 and 12-8 in the opening set, LMU began to click and knotted things up on an attack error by the Cavs. Moments later, a kill by freshman middle hitter Karlie Bowlin gave the Lady Railsplitters their first lead of the day at 15-14. A Ng He service ace capped a five-point LMU run and gave the visitors a 17-14 lead. UVa-Wise would tie things up once again at 17-17, before the Lady Railsplitters went on a four-point tear. The Cavs would get within two at 21-19 but a pair of kills from Storms, a service ace from junior libero Sarah Jones and a kill by Nartker closed out the first set.
 
LMU would dominate for much of the rest of the match, jumping out to a 7-1 lead in the second set and never looking back en route to holding UVa-Wise to just 17 points in each of the final two sets. The home team held early, one-point advantages at 1-0, 3-2 and 4-3 in the third set before the Lady Railsplitters pulled ahead 12-8 on another Jones ace. A kill from Hosenfeld put LMU up 20-12 and a trio of kills, coupled with a pair of Cavalier errors, finished off the set and the match.
 
Ng He made a career-high six blocks and had two services aces to go along with her kills, while Storms rose up for a trio of blocks and sophomore setter Emily Walter handed out a match-high 31 assists. Defensively, Jones dug out a match-best 13 UVa-Wise attacks and Walter added another five.
 
Ciara Kain led the Cavs with 11 kills as Brooke Abbott recorded eight and Abigail Byington five. Abbott also registered four blocks for UVa-Wise and the Cavs got 22 assists and 10 digs from Makayla Ledford.
 
Up Next…
The Lady Railsplitters will conclude their three-match weekend Sunday at 2 p.m. in Hickory, North Carolina, when LMU takes on the Bears of Lenoir-Rhyne. Next weekend, the Lady Railsplitters continue their extensive, seven-match SAC road swing in South Carolina by taking on Newberry Friday, Sept. 20 and Anderson Saturday, Sept. 21.

Stay tuned to LMURailsplitters.com, as well as LMU's social media platforms - @LMURailsplitter on Twitter, @LMURailsplitters on Facebook and @lmurailsplitters on Instagram, for complete coverage of Lady Railsplitter volleyball throughout the 2019 season.