Thursday, September 29, 2011

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – After opening Atlantic Sun play last weekend with a pair of road wins, the Lipscomb volleyball team opens league play at home this weekend at Allen Arena hosting USC Upstate on Friday night at 6:30 p.m. followed by a 2 p.m. tilt against ETSU on Saturday afternoon.

The Lady Bisons (8-6, 2-0 A-Sun) head into this weekend riding a season-high, six-game winning streak. Outside hitters Kaycee Green and Lauren Ford have been a big part of the offense during the run with both finishing in double-figure kills in each of the six wins. 

“As I stated at the beginning of the year, this is what we work our whole season towards,” said Lipscomb head coach Brandon Rosenthal. “It should be good, not only to be back in conference but to also be at home against two teams that are going to give us quite a fight.”

Lipscomb currently sits atop the A-Sun in hitting percentage with a .224 mark ahead of Belmont’s .214.  The Lady Bisons also lead the league in assists per set averaging 12.56 and kills per set (13.70).

The opponents:
USC-Upstate – The Spartans (4-9, 0-1 A-Sun) come into Friday night’s match having won two of their last three contests topping Western Carolina and Gardner Webb in non-conference action.   Morgan Thomas leads the way for Upstate offensively averaging 2.76 kills per set, while Morgan Page ranks fifth in the league in digs per set at 4.18.

“Upstate is one of those teams that no matter what is going on in the game or the match or the series, they are going to scratch and claw,” said Rosenthal.  “They do a fantastic job of kind of getting after it on defense.  It’s one of those teams that you can’t overlook in any sense.  Their effort and heart that they bring is tremendous.”

ETSU – The Bucs (7-8, 1-0 A-Sun) come to “Music City USA” after a 10-day layoff in the schedule and will take on the Belmont Bruins on Friday night before coming across town on Saturday.  The Bucs lead the A-Sun in blocking with a tough front line that is averaging 2.36 per set.  ETSU’s Jamie Stancliff leads the league in the category with a 1.31 blocks per match average.  2010 A-Sun Freshman of the Year Megan Devine ranks second in the conference averaging 4.26 kills per set.

“The ETSU match is always kind of a slug fest, a great rivalry,” said Rosenthal.  “Last year in the (A-Sun) championship match, ETSU did a tremendous job on us. Probably the best job any team did against us last year.  They’re the top team in the conference blocking wise and I imagine they’ll be aggressive with that.”

Chalk talk on Friday night:  Friday night’s contest against Upstate features the next installment of the “Chalk Talk” series with Rosenthal.  The behind-the-scenes, strategy and information session begins at 5:45 p.m. in the conference room of the Lipscomb athletics department in Allen Arena.