Box Score

Demorest, GA -- The Piedmont College volleyball team saw its two seniors end their regular season careers in Cave Arena with an exciting 3-0 victory over visiting Oglethorpe University earlier this evening.  The Lady Lions needed an incredible third set winner in extra points to complete the sweep and pick up their 20th victory of the season marking the seventh straight campaign that PC has tallied at least 20 wins in a season.

Trailing in the opening set 10-5, Piedmont went on to outscore the Stormy Petrels 8-3 over the next 11 points to tie the set up at 13-13 showing how close the match could be throughout the night to the fans in the Cave.  Following a tight battle down the stretch, Head Coach Sid Feldman guided his squad to the set's final point taking a 25-23 winner late to take a 1-0 overall match lead.

In the second set, OU folded under the pressure of the Piedmont attack falling 25-16 to allow the home team to a two sets to none advantage as PC looked for the sweep in set number three.  That sweep would not come as easy as the Lady Lions hoped however with Oglethorpe keeping it close by not allowing PC to pull away late with the two finding themselves tied 25-25 needing extra points to decide a winner.

Despite the Stomy Petrels having several chances to take their first set of the match, Piedmont incredibly fought off three set point chances for OU to climb back even at 29-29.  Another thundering kill from freshman Kaitlin Norman, her 12th of the night, would put PC up by one before an OU attack error handed the Lady Lions a hard fought 3-0 victory winning the third set 31-29.

Piedmont's seniors, who were honored prior to the first serve in tonight's contest, performed well in front of their hometown crowd.for their last regular season contest in their four year careers occuring in Cave Arena.  Tallassee native Rachel Powell had seven of her team's 42 kills hitting .278 and picking up both an assist and a dig while classmate Erin Krause had three kills in twice as many total attempts to swing .333 adding a trio of digs to the effort.

Leading offensively was freshman Katilin Norman who bullied 12 kills on 26 total attempts for a .346 hitting percentage making only three errors on the night.  Norman also contributed 13 digs to the defensive effort, also a team-high, while libero Paige Eslinger returned to the lineup to post a dozen digs on the night.

With 18 assists, sophomore Katheryn Knarr was the team's leader in that category while teammate Ashton Nash was not too far off with 16 of her own in the match.  Also contributing offensively was Hallye Jerkins who had six kills on twice as many attempts and tossing in eight kills was freshman Jennifer Opper who took 23 attempts hitting .217 against the Stormy Petrels.

Avenging a 3-1 loss to Oglethorpe from earlier in the seaosn with tonight's 3-0 sweep, Piedmont moves to 20-11 overall in 2011.  The Lady Lions return to the floor when they travel tomorrow to western Tennessee for an 8:00 pm match with Sewanee-University of the South. The October 28th road contest starts a three-game away swing for the Lady Lions who travel to Kentucky the following day to wrap up the regular season.