Box Score 1 |
Box Score 2 by Benny Benton
SPARTANBURG, S.C. – The Barton College women's volleyball team rallied from a 2-1 set deficit to down the host school in the Converse College Tournament and post its first victory of the season Friday night.
The win earned the Lady Bulldogs (1-6) a split for the day, as BC first dropped a straight-set decision to Southern Wesleyan University on the neutral court at Hannah Gymnasium.
Barton lost the third set with Converse to fall behind in the match, but the frame was still a key turning point for the Lady Bulldogs. The Valkyries (4-3) reached set point in the frame at 24-16, but Barton rolled off seven consecutive points to stay alive and rally within one at 24-23. After a timeout, Converse got a kill to finally complete the set, but momentum had shifted to the Royal Blue and White.
The Lady Bulldogs used a 7-1 run early in set four to pull away to a seven-point win in the frame, and then won the first four points of the tiebreaking fifth set. Barton never let the lead sink below three points in the tiebreaker in finishing off a 25-11, 20-25, 23-25, 25-18, 15-7 win.
Senior Melissa Cochran had a match-high 18 kills while hitting .417 to pace the Barton offense, and freshman setter Riley Bane had the best match of her young career, posting 41 assists and a match-high 26 digs. Bane also had two service aces in the important seven-point third-set run.
Bane was one of three players for the Lady Bulldogs with a double-double in the match. Freshman Courtney Wiseman collected 12 kills and 13 digs, while sophomore Alex Ward added 11 kills and 12 digs. A total of five Barton players reached double-figures in digs, and the team had a total of 87, the most in any match of head coach Jeff Lennox' three-year tenure.
Converse had 74 digs in the match, led by Aubrey Crosby with 22. Katie Butler paced the Valkyries offensively with 15 kills, and Jenna Martin had a double-double of 20 assists and 11 digs.
Barton out-hit its opponent for the first time this year in the match. The Lady Bulldogs recorded a .170 attack percentage, while the Valkyries produced an average of .070 that included two negative sets.
Much like the end of the third set against Converse fueled the final two sets for Barton in that contest, the end of the Southern Wesleyan match provided the Lady Bulldogs with a character-building moment that helped BC run through set one against the Valkyries.
Barton was beaten badly by the Warriors (4-2) in the first two sets of the opening match, and trailed 20-12 deep in set three. The Lady Bulldogs could have surrendered at that point and saved their energy for the match to follow, but instead BC roared all the way back with a 9-1 run that knotted the score at 21-all. A pair of Barton errors starting at 22-all helped SWU finish off the 25-10, 25-16, 25-23 win, but the Lady Bulldogs carried that momentum with them.
Sarah Hughey had a big night for Southern Wesleyan, drilling 16 kills while hitting at a staggering .650 clip. Hughey had four of those kills in her team's first 12 points of the night to set the tone early. Both Hughey and Cherilyn Ramsey, who finished the night with a double-double of 11 kills and 12 digs, had five kills in the first set alone.
SWU hit .500 in the first set and .406 in the second, committing just six errors in those two frames. Barton, meanwhile, hit .057 in the opening frame and posted an average of .100 for the match.
Cochran had nine kills and four blocks, and senior Amanda Grandy had seven digs, ending her streak of five straight matches this year and seven dating back to last season with double-figures. She started a new streak against Converse with 18.
Although Converse is a member of Conference Carolinas and Southern Wesleyan is playing a conference schedule as it transitions to league membership, both matches on Friday were considered non-conference meetings.
Barton will complete play in the tournament on Saturday and finish off a nine-match road swing to start the season by playing a pair of NAIA programs. The Lady Bulldogs will face former league member St. Andrews University at 11 a.m., and tackle the 8-1 Fighting Koalas of Columbia College at 1 p.m.
