FLORENCE, ALA. - Lipscomb volleyball  (7-5, 2-0 ASUN) concluded the opening week of ASUN play with a sweep over North Alabama (10-5, 2-1 ASUN), claiming their fourth straight win and improving to 2-0 in conference play. The Bisons continued their dominance over an improved North Alabama program, winning their 21st straight set over the Lions and snapping their five-game winnings streak entering the match in the process. 

Lipscomb hit .400 for just the second time this season, finishing with 49 kills in the three-set win. Three Bisons reached double-figures, led again by Senior Meg Mersman, who continues to dominate at the net, with 13 kills and four total blocks. She finished the match with a .765 hitting percentage, with her 13 kills coming on 17 total attempts. Courtney Jones built off of a career performance last time out by adding 12 kills of her own, while Jada DiVita made a late impact to sneak in 11 kills on the afternoon. Sophomore setter Sophia Hudepohl ended with a double-double, digging 10 balls with 42 assists. 

Set 1:

Lipscomb controlled the net initially and throughout the match, but the Bisons took control in service receive. They got North Alabama out of their usual comfort zone and prevented them from getting into their set pieces. Courtney Jones had five kills in set one, building off a solid match against UCA, where she also led the squad in the first set with five kills. Lipscomb used a 9-0 run in the middle of the set to gain and keep the advantage, resulting in a 25-17 opening set win. Netplay played a part in their success during the run. They ended with no blocks in the set, but the rest came on errors from the Lions due to the Bisons' front line being in the right place at the right time, making it difficult for the Lions to swing effectively. The Bisons hit .394 in the set with 15 kills. 

Set 2:

It was more of a back-and-fourth contest in the second set as nobody could string points together like set one. UNA settled into set two, trading points with the Bisons and preventing runs. Back-to-back kills in set two from Jones and Mersman forced a timeout after a 15-14 score and a Bisons' narrow lead. Lipscomb was forced into a timeout after UNA answered with a four-point spurt and a 19-16 lead for the Lions. The teams traded blows, extending the match past the 25-point mark after Lipscomb clawed back late to stay alive. Jada DiVita closed the set for the Bisons with some big kills after impressive play from Lipscomb's back line. Lipscomb prevailed in set two 27-25 after a hard-fought set.  

Set 3:

Swapping points was the theme of the third set, similar to the start of the second frame. Service errors by the Bisons kept them from running away in what ended up being the final set, but Lipscomb managed to string together points despite their mistakes at the line, in large part to their swingers, who hit .500 in the frame with a game-high 18 kills. The Bisons' defense, particularly their back line, held North Alabama to their lowest hitting percentage set of the match at .150 with only six kills. 

COACH ROSENTHAL POSTGAME: 

"As I mentioned yesterday, anytime you can get a road win, that's a good win. And again, the challenge of this trip is it's a long drive to UCA. It's a long drive to North Alabama from UCA. So, we spent quite a bit of time on the road yesterday, making it tough, but we are really proud of the girls for what they did. I thought they came out and really dictated a lot of the action and set one. And set two, I thought we did a nice job. We made a couple mistakes. It's crazy; it's hard to be upset with a set where you have 16 kills five errors, and in the past couple of weeks, we would love a set like that. But that was one of those that felt like every time, and we couldn't necessarily get that right thing going. We're down by three or four late in that set, and I thought our girls just buckled down and did a nice job of taking care of business. I thought defensively was a real key at the end of set two. I thought the defense as a whole was outstanding today. I can think of many different plays, but one of the plays I think about is a ball late in the second set that Meg has to play and does a great job of playing. Back-row defense isn't necessarily her forte, but she knows she has to do it, and she put the ball exactly where it needed to be so Sophia could deliver it. When you look at the match as a whole, having nine hitting errors and hitting .400 as a team is pretty special. Everybody's going to wanna look at the missed serves in the third set, and I agree. They agree. There's no point in belaboring the fact that our girls know that we have to be better servers. Especially late in sets in putting teams away, but ultimately, their defense, passing, and efficiency in set three took care of business. When you're hitting .500 as a team, you're sitting out at almost 80%, and you're just hard to beat at that point. As I said, it's really easy to get lost in the numbers of volleyball. That doesn't necessarily tell the whole story. Pleased with what we did today. I thought offensively when you play a clean match like that, it puts all the pressure on the other side. I thought Sophia did a wonderful job distributing the balls and understanding our matchups. It's easy to look at Meg's work today: 13 kills, no errors on 17 attempts; hitting .765 is tremendous, you know, and then you're adding blocks to that. I'm pleased with not only the execution but the setup of it. Credit to the coaches for doing an excellent job on the scouting report and putting things together. I think the biggest thing over the last three weeks here is whether we can execute these instructions or adjustments, and our girls have done an excellent job over the past couple of weeks of taking that information and doing some pretty special stuff with it. That's hard to do sometimes. It's easy to say, hard to do. Love what this group continues to put together. Our captains like Stogs and Libby are doing a great job of, you know, managing, and I'm starting to hear Meg and Smitty take ownership of their roles, and it's a lot of fun to see. Coaches can get out of the way when you hear that stuff going on in the locker room and then on the court. I think that's something that we've always wanted. This needs to be their program and not our program. It's theirs. They're the ones that have to go out there. We talked about the great quote by Theodore Roosevelt, The Man in the Arena, before the match today, more specifically about daring greatly. It's one of those things that gets misconstrued; it's a big ask, but a lot of times, it's just going out there and playing fearless because you know that you've built upon all these hours, on hours of training and then even when you make mistakes, that you're able to learn from them and grow from them. A lot of fun to get a road win. It's even more fun to get two road wins. So nice to be. We'll be back on the road on Wednesday, but not having to travel nearly as much will be a pleasant change. So proud of our girls, proud of just the play that they had today, and more than anything, what they continue to do as a team as far as making sure that they are staying together. "

Up Next:
Lipscomb will take on Austin Peay on Wednesday in Clarksville, with the match slated to start at 6 p.m. CT.