Mountain Hawks down Lafayette, 3-1 to sweep season series

Sunday, November 4

Easton, PA

3 p.m.

Lehigh University

19-7, 8-6PL

Lafayette

5-21, 0-14PL

LEHIGH

Lafayette

Photo by: Josh Liddick

Mountain Hawks down Lafayette, 3-1 to sweep season series

11/4/2018 6:38:00 PM | Volleyball

Box Score Lehigh-Lafayette 'The Rivalry' History Photo Gallery

EASTON, Pa. — The Lehigh volleyball team fought hard and made sure that The Rivalry was in the Mountain Hawks' favor totally in 2018, as the team took down Lafayette in four sets on Sunday afternoon at Kirby Sports Center. Lehigh finished off the Leopards 25-20, 25-19, 17-25, 25-13 for the second time this season.

Lehigh cruised out to an early two-set lead before Lafayette answered back with a big third set of its own to bring the deficit within one.

In the fourth set, after trailing 10-5 early on, the Mountain Hawks took over and made sure that Lafayette wouldn't force a deciding fifth set. Lehigh went on a 20-3 run to end the fourth and take the match.

"I thought we played really good volleyball in the first set, the second set and the fourth set," said head coach Alexa Keckler following the victory. "We may have taken a hiatus in the third set, but that's something we've talked about, so I'm kind of disappointed to see us have that lapse.

"But ultimately I love how we bounced back, we came out strong and aggressive. Jess' (Donaldson) service run was a huge spark for us in the fourth set, we needed that and it was a great display of leadership and toughness there so that was awesome."

The Mountain Hawks didn't hit the ball as well as they would have liked to for the match, finishing with a .186 mark after hitting .364 in the fourth set.

For the second match in a row, sophomore right-side hitter Hannah Wright dominated the match, tallying 20 kills, six digs and six blocks. Juniors Emily Poole and Lauren Bright stepped up once again with seven kills each. Bright registered seven blocks, while Poole added five of her own and hit .462 for the match, elevating her hitting percentage to .317 on the season.

After a 40-assist performance against Bucknell on Friday night, freshman setter Alina Lam put up a total of 39 assists against the Leopards with seven digs. Getting the start on Sunday was sophomore Allison Garrett, who finished the match with nine digs. Junior Jess Donaldson added 11 digs, while senior Emily Develle led the Mountain Hawks with 16 digs, putting her just two digs shy of breaking Lehigh's all-time record of 1,693.

With two matches left to play on the season before the Patriot League tournament begins, the level of commitment and energy displayed to close Sunday's match especially in the fourth set, is something that Keckler believes will carry over into the coming days.

"I think more than anything, (our 20-3 run) is a display of focus," said Keckler. "If we can do our job (in every way) we can be successful Tuesday against American for sure."

Next up for Lehigh is a big battle against American in our nation's capital on Tuesday night, as the Eagles are going to be coming out hot following their first loss of the Patriot League season, a 3-1 setback to Holy Cross on Saturday.

So what does Lehigh need to do going forward to make sure the team is playing among four remaining teams for the Patriot League title?

"Win," said Keckler. "Win, we just need to see if we can get a 2-0 sweep this week and we gotta do our job and we can only control what we can control so we gotta prepare for Tuesday, we gotta be gritty on the road.

"We gotta lay it out there and then we focus on Friday. But first on Tuesday, we go out to American and see if we can pull off an upset on the road and then we'll tackle the next one."

The Mountain Hawks are currently in a three-way tie for third place with Colgate and Loyola. Lehigh holds a tiebreaker over Loyola, while they still have one more shot at Colgate to split the season series on Friday.

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