By Jim Henry
jhenry@joplinglobe.com
Sara Falcone and Ashley Mitchell combined for 23 kills as Northwest Missouri State swept Missouri Southern 3-0 (25-23, 25-21, 25-16) Saturday night, spoiling the Lions’ volleyball season finale at Robert Ellis Young Gymnasium.
The Lions (13-21, 6-14 MIAA) and Bearcats (15-21, 6-14) finished in a tie for seventh place in the final conference standings. The Bearcats posted a .330 team hitting percentage compared to .150 for Missouri Southern.
“I give (Northwest Missouri) credit,” Lions head coach Chris Willis said. “This team has gotten hot in the last couple of weeks. You have to be pretty good to knock off Truman (State) and they beat Southwest Baptist. This team is playing much better. We didn’t lose to a bad team today.
“But my disappointment is our performance on Senior Day and our last match of the season. We had a chance to go out on a good note and struggled.”
The Lions never led during the first set, but consecutive kills by Maria Weller, Jeanna Feldmann and Weller again forced a 23-23 tie, the sixth deadlock of the set.
But a block by Laira Akin and Falcone, then a kill by Alex Hanna produced the final two points of the set for the Bearcats.
The second set included eight ties and five lead changes. Kills by Falcone and a Hanna and a block by Akin gave Northwest Missouri a 19-16 lead. The Lions trailed 23-21 when Kelsey Larson’s kill glanced off the net and hit the floor on the Lions’ side, and Andrea Potter’s ace closed the set.
Falcone had 12 kills and just two errors in 24 attempts, and Mitchell finished with 11 kills and two errors in 22 swings. The Bearcats also had seven team blocks, including three assisted and one solo by Akin, the setter.
Brittany Vavao-Huggins led Missouri Southern with seven kills, one more than Renee Rheinecker. Amber Heiskell had three block assists for the Lions, who had four team blocks.
Libero Kari Hammerbacher, in her final match for the Lions, had 12 digs. Hammerbacher and Stephanie Williams are the Lions’ two seniors.
“We had trouble controlling the ball,” Willis said. “From hitting errors (19) and I don’t know how many free balls we gave them. I thought our blocking was not very good. We left a lot of blocks out there. We had to do some simple things like seal the net. We just didn’t do it. And 37 digs in a three-set match is pretty poor. We have a long offseason to get things turned around.”
