MILLIGAN, Tenn. — The Milligan University women's volleyball squad played their second Appalachian Athletic Conference (AAC) bout of the year on Saturday, as the squad full in four sets to the visiting Royals of Johnson University inside Steve Lacy Fieldhouse on Smith-Harris Court (8-25, 16-25, 25-22, 19-25).
The opening set was a highly difficult one for the Buffaloes, as they attacked at a .000 clip and allowed the Royals to convert at a .522 mark. Johnson put up an 8-0 run, as well as another 9-0 run during the first frame, handing Milligan a 25-8 loss to start the match.
In the second set, the Buffaloes started stronger, playing to a 4-4 tie through the first eight points. Then, a 6-0 run by JU made it 10-4, and from there, the play was dominated by the Royals. Eventually, the Buffs fell 25-16, committing more errors than kills in the set, and were on the brink of suffering a sweep.
Milligan showed some mettle in the third set, as they fell down 4-1 early. Then, they rallied for a 9-2 run to lead 10-6. They would never relinquish the lead for the rest of the set, as Johnson did get to within one point on multiple occasions, but the Buffs held off the fury to earn a 25-22 win. Statistically, it was their best performance as well, as they had 13 kills against just four errors and beat out Johnson in attacking percentage. For MU it was a .220 clip, as opposed to .071 for the Royals.
The Buffaloes had hoped to build off the momentum they created in the third set when they took the court for the fourth. They went up 3-1 early on, but then allowed Johnson to score 12 of the next 16 points to take a commanding 13-7 lead. From there, the two squads traded blows until the end of the match, when JU pulled off a 25-19 win to clinch the 3-1 result in their favor.
Bella Devoti led MU with 12 kills on 43 swings in the loss.
Ashton Blair bounced back from a tough conference debut on Friday by providing value with 10 kills on 37 attempts.
Clare Clark and
Aleah Pickett had five terminations apiece, and
Erin Littleton added a trio on 10 tries.
Faith Wilson dished out 25 assists, with
Kyndl Hodge (7) and
Olivia Schoenstra (3) providing the other 10.
Defensively, Schoenstra and
Taylor Brinn picked up 11 digs each to lead the team. Hodge tallied nine of them, while Wilson was next with seven. Blair notched five and Devoti had a pair of them to round out the list of players with multiple digs. Six total blocks were racked up by the Lady Buffs, as Littleton and Devoti each had three block assists. Pickett added two block assists, while Wilson and Blair each had one. Clark had the lone solo rejection on Saturday for Milligan.
Milligan (0-6, 0-2 AAC) will now look ahead to Thursday, Sept. 17 in Dayton, Tenn., where they will play the Bryan College Lions at 6:30 p.m. with designs on earning their first victory.
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