The ninth-ranked Nebraska Kearney volleyball team used a balanced offense to sweep both Shorter, Ga. (-15, -13, -23) and Kentucky State (-8, -13, -12) Friday afternoon in Owensboro, Ky.
The matches are part of the 13-team Kentucky Wesleyan Invitational. UNK (7-0) faces the Lincoln Memorial (Tenn.) Railsplitters and St. Anselm (N.H.) Hawks on Saturday.
Six different Lopers had a kill in the early match against SU (2-2) with five between 7-10 kills. UNK out hit the Hawks by a .239-.046 margin, got 22 digs and two aces from freshman Lexi Stephens (Ankeny, Ia.) and made some plays late to take the third set.
Shorter had six players with a kill and they managed to hang around a third set that featured 12 ties and eight lead changes. UNK erased a 11-10 deficit with three straight points and didn't trail again but the Hawks used a block and two unforced Loper errors to knot things up at 23. However, UNK responded after a timeout with two straight points to end things.
Middle Fallon Stutheit (Johnson) hit .529 as she had nine kills in 17 swings with no errors with outside Emersen Cyza (Alliance) at a team-best 10 kills on 26 attempts. Finally, setter Peyton Neff (North Platte) had 32 assists, three kills in five chances, 10 digs, an ace and solo stuff.
The KSU Thorobreds (1-7) were no match for UNK as they hit negative .024 (17-19-83). Thirteen of those miscues were of the unforced variety with the Lopers adding six blocks, four from middle Michaela Bartels (Bennington).
Hitting .326 and serving up six aces, the Blue & Gold had six players in the kill column led by outside Emilee Lane (Hays, Kan.) with 11 and outside Asha Regier (Newton, Kan.) at nine. Finally, middle Abby Rose (Lindsborg, Kan.) had six kills and two blocks and outside Lauren Vandenberg (David City) supplied seven kills and a .300 pct.
Original source can be found here.
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