HICKORY, N.C. - The Brevard College volleyball team suffered its fifth consecutive loss in conference play on Tuesday night, falling in four sets to Lenoir-Rhyne.
The Bears, who improved to 12-5 on the season and 6-4 in SAC play, continued a seasonlong trend by becoming the seventh out of eight opponents to defeat the Tornados (8-8, 2-7) while having an attack percentage that surpassed the .200 mark. Lenoir-Rhyne hit .206 with 58 kills in the match while holding the Tornados to .114.
While the Bears needed fourth-set heroics to keep the Tornados from pushing the match to the full distance, the turning point came with a decisive 8-2 second-set run by the Bears that turned an eight-all tie into a 16-10 lead. The teams would trade points for the remainder of the set, and Brevard was never able to bounce back and fully regain control of the match after that point.
The fourth set, however, was far from easy for the Bears as Brevard tried to extend the match to a winner-take-all fifth set. The Tornados scored six consecutive points to take a 9-7 lead in a string that included two of Fatima Gharachorloo's match-high 16 kills and an assisted block by Gharachorloo and Rachel Ruble. But after the teams traded the lead three times, a decisive 10-2 Lenoir-Rhyne run made the score 24-18 and effectively sealed the win for the Bears.
Gharachorloo led the Tornados with a double-double, adding 14 digs to her 16 kills. She was part of a group of four Tornados that reached double figures in kills, led by Aleksandra Vrvilo's 19. Erin Barr also tallied a double-double, with 15 digs to go along with her 38 assists, just three from her career high.
Brevard saw a large lead evaporate in the first set before pulling out a dramatic 27-25 win. The Tornados led 17-12 before Lenoir-Rhyne scored six straight points to take the lead and force a Brevard timeout. Brevard scored three of the next four points, using two Bears' attack errors and one blocking error, to build a 21-19 advantage. The teams traded points until Lenoir-Rhyne tied the score at 25, but an Erin Barr kill and a Bears' attack error gave Brevard the win.
The Bears bounced back with a 25-20 win in the second set. The Tornados fell behind early but bounced back to tie the score at eight. An 8-2 Lenoir-Rhyne run, however, made the score 16-10 and proved to be the turning point of the entire match.
The momentum would carry over into the third set as Lenoir-Rhyne maintained a three-point lead throughout much of the early going. When a Whitney DeMoss kill trimmed the lead to a single point, the Bears responded with seven straight points of their own that included three kills from Brooke Redmond to make the score 22-14 and coasted to the win.
Brooke Redmond paced the Bears with 22 digs and 16 kills of her own and hit .333 with just three errors for the match. Setter Brianna Gottberg contributed 43 assists and libero Morgan Bunker had 31 digs.
The Tornados next take to the floor on Friday night in Brevard for a 7:00 p.m. match with Catawba.
Featured image courtesy of Neil Hayes. Click here to view more photos by Neil.
