Box Score

Lookout Mountain, GA -- The Piedmont College volleyball team fell at Great South Athletic Conference member Covenant College earlier this evening 3-1 to post their fifth loss in as many games.  The Lady Scots took advantage of a big win in the match's second set to hold on despite Piedmont's attempt to force a deciding final set as Covenant won its fifth match in the team's last seven.

In the opening set of tonight's action, the two sides battled back and forth to start until Covenant began to pull away at the end with a 24-19 lead.  Four straight points from the Lady Lions made the home team feel the pressure at 24-23, but an Emily Stewart kill gave Covenant their 25th point to take the first set for a 1-0 advantage in the match.

The second set would not be as close with Covenant using a 9-1 run at the start to cruise to the 25-12 decision taking a two sets to none lead overall.  Looking to keep the Lady Scots at bay with a winner in the third, Piedmont came out strong with a 4-0 run to start only to see a well placed Covenant timeout help the home team even back up at 6-6.

From that point forward, the two teams would pull level ten more times until they found themselves deadlocked at 21-21.  After Piedmont rattled off three straight points to come within one score of picking up their first set of the match, Covenant responded in front of its home crowd with three straight of its own only to see an Ashley Fannon kill give the Lady Lions a 25th point for the set victory.

With their match life on the line in the game's fourth set, Piedmont fought back from a 20-16 deficit to come within two points of tying things up at 22-20.  However, a pair of Covenant kills put the score at 24-20 in favor of the visitors just before a Piedmont attack error, its 33rd of the night, ended the match with the Lady Scots winning three sets to one.

Forced into their third worst hitting performance of the season, Piedmont hit just .012 as a team with four Lady Lions hitting in the negatives on the night.  Senior Rachel Powell led the team with her nine kills on 30 attempts to hit .167, also a team high in the loss. 

Freshman Katie Byrd added eight kills of her own to go with 17 digs in the effort leading all Lady Lions defensively in that category.  Chipping in 14 digs was junior Jessica Hollis while teammates Erin Krause and Katheryn Knarr also totaled double digit digs with 10 and 11 respectively.

Knarr was the team's leader in the setting department tallying 18 helpers while sophomore Ashton Nash picked up ten of her own.

The loss is the fifth straight for PC who falls to 17-8 on the season though the match does not count in the year-end seedings for the conference championships.  Piedmont will look to bounce back this weekend when the team travels to Macon, GA for a GSAC tri-match featuring match-ups with Wesleyan College and Maryville College.  The Lady Lions will kick off with a 12:00 pm match on Saturday, October 15th against the hosting Pioneers of Wesleyan before facing Maryville in a 2:00 pm afternoon game.