The Lady Cavaliers continue to play well early in the season, and are just coming off a 4-1 tournament in Clearwater, FL. The competition included Kentucky Christian College, Trinity College, Oglethorpe University, Clearwater Christian Collge and Multnomah Bible College. The strong showing from the Cavaliers included outstanding performances from Natalie Nieman and Anna Stephenson, both of whom earned AAC Player of the Week honors according to yesterday's conference announcement. In addition, Stephenson and Alyssa Kaufman garnered All Tournament awards at the CCC \tournament.

Coach Mooberry shares her thoughts on the weekend:

"Our first match of the tournament was against Kentucky Christian University.  KCU had pulled ahead of us the first set to win 27-25, and the girls came back with fire, beating them 25-19 in the second, and 25 - 16 in the third. During the 4^th set, we came out strong and were ahead by a good amount when Allie came down on another player and rolled her ankle.  Allie is a key player for us and all of our serve receive and offense is created based on the players strengths we expect to have in the game.  So, we knew it would be challenging to have players switch positions and change up serve receive rotations, but it was necessary.  We asked for an exceptional sub to be able to move one of our right sides to the middle, but that would mean that we had to have played everyone. The scorekeeping table had that Liz, one of our defensive specialists, had not played yet, so Liz was our new middle. We adapted and fought to finish that game, but lost 22-25.   We knew we would have to come out strong for the 5^th match and come out quickly.  The girls were able to finish the game winning 15 - 7.  Allie earned 5 kills and had a 41% kill percentage for the duration of her play. Alyssa came in strong with 10 kills and a 36% kill percentage. Ellen and Anna both added 8 and 9 kills. Alyssa and Ellen led on defense with 18 digs for Ellen and 12 digs for Alyssa. Anna also added three blocks.

Our next match was against Trinity College of Florida.  We pulled out a win in four sets (25-22, 25-18, 22 -25, 25 - 23) but were really disappointed in our level of play. However, Bekah Corn stepped up and had 10 kills and a 38% kill percentage. She did an excellent job of being vocal and trying to keep the energy up on the court. Natalie Nieman had 26 assists. Alyssa added 10 kills, had a 25% kill percentage, 15 serve receptions and 14 digs.  Ellen chipped in 7 kills, 11 service receptions and 13 digs. Anna had 15 kills and a 35% kill percentage, 17 serve receptions, 9 digs and 2 solo blocks.

 

The last match of that night was against Oglethorpe University. We switched the line up again to run a 5-1 and were able to win in three 25-11, 25-19, 25-10. Alyssa had 8 kills, 9 serve receptions, and 6 digs.  Ellen Goodman also added 8 kills and had a 37% kill percentage.  Anna Stephenson had 9 serve receptions, 7 digs and 2 solo blocks. Natalie Nieman added 21 assists to the match.

 

Saturday morning we faced our toughest opponent, Clearwater Christian College. Clearwater came at us with very strong players, good height, and excellent defense. We struggled to adjust with the changes that had to be made without Allie against such a well put together team.  We ended up losing the match in four sets. 

Our last match of the day was against Multnomah University out of Washington. We came out strong and were able to take them in three 25-15, 25 - 15, 25 - 9. Bekah Corn had 7 kills and 50% kill percentage. Natalie had 22 assists. Alyssa had 9 kills and 9 digs. Liz Huitron had 4 aces and 9 digs. Anna Stephenson had 8 kills, a 33% kill percentage.  Overall the weekend was a good chance for us to practice adjusting to the unexpected and stepping up to get the job done. After the five matches we headed out to the beach for a fun day of searching for sea shells, sand dollars, and playing in the salty surf, and of course sandwiches at Frenchy's."

The Cavaliers are now 7-2 on the season overall, and 1-0 in AAC play. Their next match is Thursday against conference member Virginia Intermont and a non-conference match against King College.