The Lady Lions opened their 2010 season Monday night with a hard fought 5-set road victory at Bethel College in McKenzie, TN. The game scores were 22-25, 26-24, 25-17, 18-25, 16-14. Senior Captain
Alison Young led the Lions with a 10-kill (.290 pct), 9-dig effort in the marathon match, while Junior Libero
Courtney Cotter led the Bryan defense with a 22-dig effort.
Early on, the Lions struggled offensively, hitting only .125 in the first two sets although they kept pace with the Wildcats with strong passing and defense. Leading into set 3, Coach Sayles made a couple of key lineup changes, flipping his middle blockers and inserting Freshman Setter Rebecca Adams alongside Freshman Danielle Lampman to lead the offense. The Lions hit .289 in the final three sets.
The Lion squad sprinted out to an early lead in set 3 and never looked back. However, the Wildcats bounced back and controlled set 4. After falling behind 13-4, Coach Sayles called his second timeout. "I told the girls it looked like we were going to set 5 at that point, but that we needed to find our rhythm again and try to gain some momentum going into the fifth set," commented Sayles. The Lions slowly rallied, getting as close as 16-18, but could not sustain the rally.
Set 5 was tight throughout, with neither team building more than a 2-point lead through the turn at 8. The Wildcats' strong middles helped put the host-team on the verge of victory at 14-12, but Young drilled a shot down the line to get to 14-13. Serving with Bethel still at match point, the Lions caught a break. Lampman played up a tough ball that sailed high past the endline. As Cotter gave chase, the ball hit the basketball backboard, forcing her to misplay the ball. The Bethel team and crowd began to celebrate, but didn not notice the referees signaling a replay. As the crowd cried out in frustration, Young calmly served 3 straight to tie and pull out the improbable extra-point victory.
"What a way to start the season!" said Sayles, "I feel for the Bethel team but I believe the call was very fair. The referees made it very clear before the match that they would call a replay on any close play at the backboard. I am glad Courtney pursued the ball - had she not, the referees would have let the apparent kill stand. I also give credit to our team for showing some fight in their first road match. I thought we had lost all momentum after we lost the fourth, but the girls fought point-for-point in the fifth. The gym was very hot, so we were getting dehydrated and exhausted, but they found a way to win."
The Lions will rest until Friday, when they will travel to Milligan College to compete in the
Milligan Mountain Madness tourney this weekend.
