Nov 06, 2015

Volleyball falls in five to #19 Fla. Southern

LAKELAND, Fla. -- The Saint Leo women's volleyball team played neck-and-neck with No. 19 Florida Southern before dropping a five-set decision to the Mocs, 3-2, Friday night at the Jenkins Field House. The match marked the third time this season the Lions (17-9, 8-5 SSC) took an opponent into five sets, with both previous five-setters coming against Barry University.

Senior setter Ashlee Hodgskin charted 59 assists in the loss, giving her 1,013 assists this season and making her the first Lion since Jaclyn Mailoto totaled 1366 assists in 2013. Ironically, Mailoto also went over the 1,000-assist mark against Florida Southern (October 29, 2013).

The Basics
Final Score: #19 Florida Southern def. Saint Leo, 3-2 (25-27, 25-22, 25-19, 20-25, 15-10).
Location: Jenkins Field House | Lakeland, Fla.
Records: Saint Leo 17-9, 8-5 SSC | Florida Southern 20-6, 7-5 SSC

How It Happened

Junior Hope Lemon paced the Lions with a season-high 20 kills on 52 attacks for a .283 hitting percentage. Lemon also turned up 10 digs to aid Saint Leo defensively.
Senior Anna Siruckova put away 16 kills behind a .214 hitting percentage. She also recorded two solo blocks and a block assist, accounting for seven of the Lions' 7.0 blocks on the night.
Senior Jillian Stolzenburg finished with 11 kills on 21 swings, finishing with a .524 hitting percentage, and added two block assists.
Hodgskin's season-high 59 assists went along with nine digs, five kills, and three service aces.
Junior Jamee Townsend charted 24 digs versus the Mocs, her sixth-straight match with at least 20 digs.
Set 1 | Florida Southern had a lead as large as 10-5, before Saint Leo drew even with the Mocs by rattling off five straight points. Kills by Britt Sederholm and Stolzenburg started the run, with Sederholm scoring an ace and the final two points coming off Mocs' errors. Neither team could get more than two points separation from the other for most of the set, with the Lions pulling away late in the set. A side out Moc attack error followed by kills by Katie Adamson and Lemon advanced Saint Leo to 23-20, and Siruckova's kill two points later put the Lions on set point. Florida Southern responded with four straight points of its own to go to set point at 25-24, when another Siruckova terminations knotted the set at 25-25. Back-to-back Florida Southern attack errors allowed Saint Leo to post the 27-25 win.
Set 2 | Florida Southern rallied for a 25-22 win in set two, despite the Lions holding a lead as late as 22-20 following a Sederholm kill. The Mocs posted the last five points of the set to clinch the win, and hit .372 for the set.
Set 3 | The Mocs took a 3-1 lead in the match with the third set victory, hitting a match-high .389 with 15 kills and one error on 36 swings, while the Lions were held to .216 with five errors. Florida Southern grabbed a four-point lead through the first 10 plays of the set and never relented, with the Lions making their last run at the Mocs at 20-17 following a Lemon kill. Kills by FSC's Nicole Mattson and Anna Tovo advanced the score to 22-17, with a Siruckova termination stopping the run at 22-18. A pair of side out kills moved the score to 23-19, and two points later the Mocs clinched the set on a Kendall Marotti kill.
Set 4 | A four-point run early in the set gave Saint Leo a 10-5 lead, and the Lions managed to keep some distance over the Mocs on their way to the win. Florida Southern briefly cut the margin to 13-12 following a block by Kayshia Brady and Bethany Besancenez, with the Lions responding with back-to-back kills by Siruckova and Adamson. Another four-point run later in the set advanced the Saint Leo lead to 19-14, and the Lions won four of the final five points of the set to knot the match at 2-2. A Hodgskin ace provided set point for the Lions.
Set 5 | Florida Southern hit .320 in the decisive fifth set while Saint Leo posted a .222 hitting percentage as the Mocs wrapped up the win. The Lions held a 10-8 lead after kills by Lemon and Hodgskin, but Saint Leo gave up seven straight points to Florida Southern to close out the match.

Beyond the Box score

Hope Lemon's 20 kills tonight versus Florida Southern was just the second 20-or-more kill tally of her career; her only 20-kill effort was her career high of 22 kills during her freshman season vs. Adelphi (Sept. 7, 2013).
The Lions are now 1-2 in five-set matches, with Friday's five-set defeat at the hands of the Mocs the first of those where Saint Leo won the first set.
Saint Leo is now 3-5 in road matches, 2-4 is road SSC matches.
The Lions remain three wins shy of a 20-win season. Saint Leo has had only seven 20-win seasons in the 34 years of program history. Head coach Sam Cibrone was at the helm for five the program's seven 20-win seasons. The Lions last 20-win season was in 2013. The Lions finished second in the SSC and reached the NCAA Regional Quarterfinals.

For the Panthers

The Panthers hit .269 as a team and collected 53 kills. Olivia Hersey was the lone Panther to collect double-digit kills with 13.
Ashtin Truesdal dished out 33 assists, and notched a team best 20 digs.
Becca Bower added 16 digs, while Jenna Schaffer added 13 to compine for just under half of the teams digs.

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