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Volleyball falls in SSAC semifinal to top-seed Spring Hill
GULFPORT, Miss. - They responded after a game one
loss and put themselves in position to advance to the championship
match.
Unfortunately for the Shorter University Lady Hawk volleyball team, Spring Hill still had some fight left in the tank.
Spring Hill punched its ticket to the Southern States Athletic Conference championship final later today by rallying from a 2-1 match deficit to stun Shorter 3-2 in the semifinals of the 2010 SSAC Volleyball Tournament.
The Badgers (27-4), the top-seed out of the SSAC West Division, will take their crack at East Division top-seed and No. 1-ranked Lee University (34-0) in tonight's SSAC final. The winner earns the SSAC's automatic bid into the NAIA Volleyball National Championship.
Shorter (26-6) will have to wait and see if it is awarded an at-large bid into the national tournament after what many will consider an early exit from the conference tournament.
The Lady Hawks were in search of their second victory over Spring Hill this season - Shorter beat Spring Hill 3-1 in the SSAC Cross-Over Classic in Montgomery, Ala., earlier in the year - but could not overcome a match-high 27 kills from Spring Hill's Yiting Cao, who also recorded 15 digs and three aces.
Shorter got 19 kills from senior Ashley Walton and 15 kills from senior Ashlie Stewartson. Junior Jessica Cooper added 11 kills and Jordan Corder dished out 49 assists for the Lady Hawks, who dropped the first game 25-17, but responded with a thrilling 29-27 win in game two to even the match.
The Lady Hawks appeared to grab control with a dominating 25-13 win in game three, but proceeded to fall behind 14-7 in game four and never quite recovered. Shorter crawled to within a point at 22-21 on an ace by Loni Beth Jones, but the Badgers closed out the game with the help of an attack error from Shorter to set the stage for a fifth and final set.
Spring Hill again raced out to a quick start in the deciding game, jumping out to a 12-4 lead that proved too steep for Shorter.
Loren Olive finished with seven kills and 11 digs for Shorter. Senior Maggie Parker recorded six kills and senior Katie Van Hofwegen, Shorter's all-time leader in aces, posted four aces to go along with 16 digs.
