BOWLING GREEN, Ky. — The #1 seed Campbellsville Tigers hit the court against the #4 Lindsey Wilson Blue Raiders in the Mid-South Conference Semifinals Friday. Despite playing the Blue Raiders closely, errors took their toll on the Tigers and they lost, 3-1.
The regular season matchups of the two squads lasted a total of seven sets with Campbellsville taking six. The Blue Raiders hadn't logged a kill percentage higher than .120 in either of the matches while the Tigers averaged over .200.
The postseason meant a fresh beginning for both teams though. Lindsey Wilson had already played in the opening round of the MSC Championship Tournament, besting Bethel in four sets after they dropped the first. Perhaps that was a great indicator of the fervor which the Blue Raiders would begin the match with as it was a 6-2 start for Lindsey Wilson in the first frame. The Tigers were struggling on their attack, suffering several attack errors with the score at 12-5 for the Blue Raiders. After that point however, Campbellsville utilized a 5-0 run to force a timeout and cut the lead to just two. The Tigers faced a first set loss at 24-20, and rallied to 23, but the Blue Raiders secured their 25
th point to end it.
In the second set, Campbellsville sought to clean up their offensive play and turn their negative hitting percentage positive. Following their launch into a 3-1 advantage, the Tigers found the Blue Raiders unrelenting. The pendulum swung back to Lindsey Wilson's favor and fueled their persistent two-to-three-point lead, but Campbellsville evened things up at 12's. From there, it was a back-and-forth battle exchanging leads and tying scores. The Tigers began to separate with repeated Blue Raider errors and
Cierra Merrick kills. Ultimately, Campbellsville won the frame 25-22. Merrick had a team-high nine kills at that point.
The third set was all Tigers to begin. From the get-go, Campbellsville pressured the rotating Lindsey Wilson defense to their limits, hitting a blistering .556 with the score at 10-3. The Tigers had huge blocks too from
Morgan Furness,
Brooke Hager, and
Zofia Serafinowska in the middle. The Blue Raiders took an intermission and came out reinvigorated. Lindsey Wilson tied things up at 11's and continued past Campbellsville from there, keeping a cushion of a point or two up to 21-19 for the Blue Raiders. A
Hannah McGill block and a subsequent McGill kill knotted things at 21's. The Tigers had chances to decide the set, but couldn't get the job done with their score at 24-21, and the Blue Raiders pushed back to move ahead 25-24. Hager, set up by MSC Setter of the Year
Camryn Rich, tied the score immediately following the Lindsey Wilson serve. Ultimately, on the back of back-to-back kills, the Blue Raiders were victorious in the frame, 28-26. That set was the highest scoring frame of the MSC Championship Tournament thus far.
The momentum proved to have swung into Lindsey Wilson's favor at that point and it stayed there. The final frame saw the Tigers' hitting percentage dip the furthest it had since the first frame at .078 while the Blue Raiders connected on their second-best kill percentage of the match (.222). The Tigers' only lead was at 15-14 after mustering all they could before Lindsey Wilson took over and won the match 25-19.
Merrick was the team leader in kills with 16, Rich had 41 assists, Rich and
Taylor Thacker shared 22 digs to pace the Tigers, and Hager and Furness both had four blocks.
Campbellsville now awaits the NAIA National Tournament selection news.
