DeLand, Fla. -- In a battle for first place in the Atlantic Sun Conference, Lipscomb remained undefeated in league play with a 3-1 (25-14, 22-25, 25-16, 25-22) victory over host Stetson Saturday afternoon at the Edmunds Center.
Stetson (13-7, 5-2 A-Sun) had its five-game winning streak snapped and suffered just its first home loss of the season. Lipscomb improved to 13-6 overall, 7-0 in the A-Sun.
Stetson head coach Kristina Hernandez said some uncharacteristic errors proved to be the difference in the match.
"We want to give ourselves opportunities to compete against teams like (Lipscomb), and when we are having a lot of unneccesary unforced errors, like missing a ton of serves and (committing) net violations, then we don't give ourselves an opportunity to do anything else," Hernandez said. "We have to be perfect on offense, and we have to dig every ball. I felt that was something that put us on little crutches today and something that we need to be better at as a team."
Stetson committed 13 serving errors and 10 blocking errors in the match.
Kayla Weller became the sixth player in school history to surpass 2500 career assists. She finished with 28 helpers and 14 digs on Saturday.
McKenna Foster led the offense with 12 kills for the second straight day, while Madison Akins added 11 kills from the right side. Shelby Connors tallied seven blocks, including three in a row early in the fourth set, while Alexa Drost picked up a dozen digs.
The teams were tied at intermission, but the Lady Bisons took control in the third set and led by as many as six at 21-15 in the fourth set. The Hatters fought back, however, using a 6-0 run highlighted by two kills and a block assist by Foster. However, Lipscomb tallied four of the final five points to come away with the victory.
"There in the fourth set I felt we did a really good job of coming back and getting it to 21-21," Hernandez said. "Then we missed two serves. Being in those moments, we have to give ourselves an opportunity to compete, but I don't feel like we did that the entire game."
Despite the loss, Stetson finished the first half of the conference season with a 5-2 mark.
"We wish we had played better today and in our first match against Florida Gulf Coast, but overall we are not in a bad position," Hernandez said. "I feel like we have much better control over what we are going to do. We have to restart now, and take every last part of this conference schedule game-by-game."
Stetson will play one final non-conference match vs. Bethune-Cookman on Wednesday night before starting the second half of conference play next Saturday afternoon against FGCU.
