For the first time since 2017, the Lee University volleyball team advanced to the second round of the Gulf South Conference Tournament with a 3-2 win over the University of Montevallo inside Walker Arena on Tuesday evening. Coach Christa Fabre's team earned the right to travel to Pensacola, Fla. and face No. 4 seed Valdosta State University on Friday at 5 p.m. (EST).
The thrilling battle saw the Lady Flames win the first set easily, 25-13. The University of Montevallo came back and claimed sets two and three, 23-25, 19-25. Lee rebounded to take the fourth set 25-20 and then claimed the short set 15-7.
Sara Palumbo led the Lee attack with 17 kills and an outstanding .424 hitting percentage. She also had three aces, 11 digs and two blocks. Payton Danley followed with 14 kills and four blocks. Julia Davis had one of her best efforts of the season and stepped up big in the last three sets. She finished with eight kills and a .500 hitting mark. The senior also went to the deck for 10 digs.
Freshman Brynna Sands drew praise from Coach Fabre. Like Davis, Sands came on strong in the latter part of the match and contributed six kills and three blocks. Naomi Hockless had four kills and nine big blocks.
For the match, Lee had 55 kills and finished with a solid .232 attack percentage, compared to 49 kills and a .110 attack mark by the Falcons. Lee got 40 assists from Berra Soyler and nine from Madison Dahl. The Lady Flames had a total of 53 assists to 45 for Montevallo.
In the dig department, Lee went to the deck for 67 digs. Izzy Denton had 32 digs. The Falcons got 69 digs overall and Ava Wind had 21. Katie Wilkerson was the kill leader for the visitors with 14 while Danielle Greene came back from a blow to the face and recorded eight kills and seven blocks.
Coach Christa Fabre's Thoughts:
"It was such a roller coaster of a match. We started off that strong and it was almost like we expected them not to respond. But Montevallo came back fighting because it is postseason and everyone wants to win. REally prud to see our team respond and decide that we were not done."