Seeding for the NCCAA National Tournament proved to be right, as No. 2
Campbellsville University has advanced to the championship match with No. 1
Mount Vernon Nazarene University to be played Dec.5 at 3 p.m. in the Kissimmee
Civic Center in Kissimme, Fla.
The Lady Tigers won their fifth straight match of the tournament, 3-1, over
Bryan College (25-20, 25-21, 15-20, 25-18) in the semifinal earlier in the day at
noon.
Campbellsville took a 1-0 lead in the first set on an ace from senior
Whitney Haynes, but the Bryan Lions rallied to go up 8-4. It took another 15
points before CU regained its lead, 19-18, on a tip by
Christiana Sindelar. While Bryan quickly tied the match, Campbellsville pulled away for a 25-20 win
with the help of attacking errors by the Lions.
The second set also belonged to the Lady Tigers as they took a 9-5 lead.
Bryan took a short lead, 14-13, but
Shannon Cahill had two kills to help pull CU back ahead by two, 16-14. The lead grew to a 25-21
second set win.
Bryan, who has refused to go down without a fight in the tournament, bounced
back to dominate the third set, 25-15. Bryan lost to King College in the
Mid-East Regional Nov. 21 but received an at-large bid to the tournament. Since
then, the Lions have been on a roll, winning their first three matches of the
national tournament, including a five-set win over King.
Bryan continued its fight into the fourth set, holding the lead most of the
way by two points. A block by Haynes and Sindelar cut the lead to a point,
15-14, and
Caitlin Dresing nailed an ace to even the score, 15-15. The Lions
maintained their lead, but only for a moment, as Sindelar tipped the score even
again, 17-17. A ball handling error by Bryan gave CU the lead on the next
volley and the Lady Tigers didn't look back. Sindelar added another kill to
stretch the lead to two points, 20-18. A Bryan error stretched it to 21-18,
followed by a Haynes ace and back-to back kills by
Samantha James to win the
set, 25-18.
Sindelar led CU in scoring with a career-high 14 kills and four blocks, while Cahill led the attack with 15 kills.
Brooke Marcum had seven kills and four blocks before going down in the fourth set with an ankle injury.
Caroline Martin had her third 40-set match in the tournament with 42 set assists.
Defensively, Dresing missed her career-high by one dig, finishing with 30. However, it was the most digs the Louisiville freshman has collected in a match that went less than five sets. Martin was also one shy of her high with 24 digs. Cahill had 20. As a team, CU collected 109 digs.
The win was a record 37th of the season for Campbellsville, but
the Lady Tigers are not ready to quit adding to the win column yet, as the
NCCAA Championship sits next.
