GREENSBORO, N.C. – Junior outside hitter
Sydney Heifner (Nashville, Tenn. / Harpeth Hall) tallied a match-high 26 kills to help the Washington and Lee volleyball team come back to defeat Guilford, three sets to two, on Monday evening.
The Generals (11-8, 8-1 ODAC) dropped two of the first three sets of the match, but came out firing in the fourth set, and opened the frame with a 14-3 lead. The run featured 11 straight points early on, giving the Blue and White a 12-2 lead when the run concluded. The Quakers (2-15, 0-7 ODAC) battled throughout the remainder of the set, but never got closer than eight points, as the Generals claimed the set, 25-14, to force the conclusive fifth set.
In the fifth, W&L got off to an 8-1 lead and led by as many as eight points at 11-3. A 4-1 Guilford run pulled the Quakers back to a five-point deficit, but the two sides then alternated points the rest of the way, giving the Generals a 15-9 fifth-set win to claim the match.
Guilford opened by hitting 0.267 and limiting W&L to 0.067 en route to winning the first set, 25-16. The Generals bounced back to take the second set, 25-18, behind 15 kills and a 0.353 hitting percentage, before the Quakers responded with a 25-13 third-set win to move ahead, 2-1.
Heifner's 26 kills came on a 0.351 hitting percentage in the contest, and it marks the most kills in a single match by a General since M.A. Boles tallied 28 against Geneva in 2012. Overall, Heifner's 26 kills are tied with Leslie Fischbeck (2000) for the fourth most in a single match in program history.
Heifner added 15 digs on the defensive end, while senior libero
Caroline Gard (Naperville, Ill. / Benet Academy) led the team with 20 digs. Senior setter
Ashley Webb (Thousand Oaks, Calif. / Westlake) produced a match-high 42 assists, her second straight match with at least that many, and she added a season-high five service aces. First-year outside hitter
Lillie Holcomb (Greensboro, N.C. / Western Guilford) came in behind Heifner with 11 kills in the match.
Guilford was led on offense by a trio of players who reached double-digit kills, with Natalie Moore tallying a team-high 12. Vanessa Johnson finished with 11 kills on a 0.429 hitting percentage and Kaci Johnson added 10 kills on a 0.304 hitting percentage. Setter Maddi Page totaled 40 assists on the night and Lydia Saunders totaled a team-best 17 digs on defense.
For the match, the Generals' three set wins all came behind 0.310 or better hitting percentage efforts, with a high of 0.364 coming in the clinching set.
The Generals will return to action on Wednesday when they host Randolph-Macon at 7:00 pm in Holekamp Gym.
