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#18 Spring Hill rallies late to eliminate Lady Hawks in five sets
By Matt Green
BILOXI, Miss. -- Needing just three points to pull what may have been the bigget upset in program history, Shorter University was reintroduced to Spring Hill All-American Yiting Cao.
The 6-foot native of Shaghai, China racked up 28 kills and scored the final three points of the fourth set to keep the Badgers alive as Spring Hill punched its ticket to tonight's Southern States Athletic Conference championship match with a 25-23, 22-25, 19-25, 28-26, 15-7 victory over the Lady Hawks.
Spring Hill (38-0), ranked No. 18 in the latest NAIA Volleyball Coaches Top 25 Coaches Poll, remained unbeaten and will take on the winner of the day's second semifinal match between Lee University and Loyola New Orleans for the conference title and the SSAC's automatic bid into the NAIA Volleyball National Championship.
Shorter (29-8) will have to wait and see if it is granted an at-large berth into the national tournament. Junior Loren Olive had a team-high 18 kills, Tori Bradley posted 16 kills and Jessica Cooper and Jasmine Crook added 14 kills each for Shorter, which last won a conference championship in 2007.
The Lady Hawks put nearly put themselves in a position for a second league tournament title after dropping the opening set of the match.
Up 2-1 in the match and needing only to win the fourth set, Shorter took a 22-21 lead on Sha Sha Buchanan's attacking error and stood just three points from victory.
But Buchanan redeemed herself with a kill and Cassandra Marchand-Stewart followed with a kill to put Spring Hill up 23-22. The Badgers never trailed again as Cao, a leading candidate for NAIA Player of the Year, asserted herself with three kills to secure the 28-26 win and even the match at 2-2.
With the match on the line, Spring Hill scored 11 of the first 15 points in the fifth set and cruised the rest of the way. A kill by Cao was the final blow as Spring Hill earned the right to play for a championship.
The Lady Hawks rebounded well from suffering an opening set defeat.
Shorter and Spring Hill were deadlocked at 15-all in the second set before a 5-1 Shorter run ignited by a pair of kills from Olive and capped by a kill from Crook put the Lady Hawks ahead 20-16. Spring Hill battled back to knot the set at 21, but a kill and a block from Bradley and blocks from Cooper and Crook helped Shorter pull out the 25-22 victory and even the match at 1-1.
Shorter used another spurt to break a 15-15 tie in the third set, this time a 6-1 run that gave the Lady Hawks a commanding 21-16 edge. The Badgers got no closer than four points the rest of the way and a kill from Olive closed out the set and put Shorter one game from victory.
Jordan Corder, the two-time defending SSAC Setter of the Year, was on top of her game Saturday with a season-high 62 assists. She added 11 digs and now has 3,173 assists for her career.
Tanequa Whitman led Shorter with 21 digs and Cooper added five blocks to her stat line.
Buchanan chipped in with 15 kills for Spring Hill and Marchand-Stewart added 14. Spring Hill setter Taryn Nash had a game-high 67 assists and Meredith Donald notched 30 digs.
