Milligan volleyball handed first loss

The Milligan College women's Volleyball team battled down to the wire with conference opponent UVA-Wise Tuesday night. The Lady Buffs spilt the first four games with the Lady Cavaliers, but lost the tiebreaker.

The first game went to the Lady Buffs with a score of 30-27. The Lady Cavaliers rallied to win the second game with a score of 31-29. The Lady Buffs came back firing though to take another close game from Wise, 30-28. With the Lady Buffs up two games to one, all the Lady Buffs needed was the win to seal the victory, but their efforts came up short with the Lady Cavaliers on top 30-26. Both teams having two victories apiece sent the match into the fifth game, which the Lady Cavaliers won 15-6.

Leading the offense was Freshman Ashley Welch (Waynesville, N.C.) who had 13 kills, along with senior Amanda Hyder (Johnson City, Tenn.) who had 10 kills. Assisting the attack was freshman Erin Biddle (Newport, Tenn.) with 30 set assists. Senior Alison Slagle (Bristol, Tenn.) served five aces, while Biddle served four.

Defensively freshman Ellyn Sapp (Johnson City, Tenn.) led the way with 43 digs. Also helping on defense was senior Alyssa Graber (Montgomery, Ind.) and junior Christy Degen (Atlanta, Ga.) with 13 digs apiece, while Slagle had 12 digs. Also on defense, Freshman Emilee Hale (Morristown, Tenn.) and Hyder set the pace at the net with five block kills each.

“We played very well tonight,” said Milligan College Coach Kim Hyatt. “UVA-Wise is one of the top teams in the conference and I am happy with how we played with them. The girls really hustled and played together as a unit.”

The Lady Buffs travel to Union College for another conference match Thursday, Sept. 6, at 6:30 p.m.