DANVILLE, Ky. – Playing in the final weekend of Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference action, the Millsaps College volleyball team traveled to Centre College and dropped three of four matches to finish with the No. 7 seed in the upcoming 2009 SCAC Championship Tournament.
Opening play Saturday afternoon, the Majors faced
DePauw University and dropped the opening set 25-15 before rallying to even the match at 1-1 with a 25-19 win in the second set. The Tigers took control from this point and won the next two sets by scores of 25-16 and 25-22 to take the match.
The Majors rebounded from the loss in the opening match by sweeping
Sewanee University 3-0 in convincing fashion with scores of 25-19, 25-5 and 25-9 while finishing with a .338 hitting percentage as a team. Seven players recorded a kill for the Majors in the match, led by sophomore
Kasey Laird’s eight.
Early Sunday morning, Millsaps dropped the opening set 25-13 to host
Centre College, before regrouping to take the second set 25-21. In the final two sets, the Majors fought hard, but were unable to come up with the big points as the Colonels closed out the final sets 25-22 and 25-23 for the 3-1 win.
In the final match of the weekend, the Majors took on
Birmingham-Southern College and lost in a five-set thriller. After losing the first set 25-15, Millsaps bounced back to take the second set 25-22.
The Panthers would take a 2-1 set lead by winning the third set 25-16, but again the Majors showed their resilience by coming back to win a close fourth set 25-22 to even the set score 2-2. The comeback effort was stopped short as Birmingham-Southern closed out the match with a 15-9 victory in the deciding fifth set.
Leading the charge for the Majors on the weekend was junior
Kate Hall, who finished with 52 kills in the four matches. Junior setters
Mallory Clark and
Hailey Miranda ended the weekend with a combined total of 102 set assists, recording 53 and 49, respectively.
Senior libero
Dixie Krauss led the Millsaps defense with 48 digs, while junior
Erica Cook added 41 digs of her own. The Majors served a total of 27 aces on the weekend, with a team-leading 11 coming from Laird. Freshman
Sarah Zito led the Majors with eight solo blocks and added 11 block assists.
The Majors, now 14-15 overall and 5-9 in the SCAC, return home for matches with Rust College and Belhaven College this week after playing 15 straight on the road. Millsaps will use the final two regular season matches as tune-ups for the SCAC Championship Tournament where they are seeded No. 7 and will face the No. 10 seed Oglethorpe University in the opening round on Saturday, Nov. 6 in Atlanta, Ga.