Third set comeback not enough as Lehigh falls to Navy, 3-1

Friday, November 1

Bethlehem, Pa.

7:00 PM

Lehigh University

13-12, 6-5PL

Navy

12-9, 7-3PL

Navy

Lehigh

Photo by: Justin Lafleur

Third set comeback not enough as Lehigh falls to Navy, 3-1

11/1/2019 11:17:00 PM | Volleyball

Box Score

BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Despite an exciting third set that got them back into the match for a moment, the Lehigh volleyball team fell to Navy Friday night at Leeman-Turner Arena at Grace Hall, 3-1. The loss snaps the Mountain Hawks' four-match win streak dating back to Oct. 15 and puts them at 13-12 overall with a Patriot League record of 6-5 with just five matches remaining in the regular season.

The Mountain Hawks fell in a 2-0 hole early, falling in the first set, 25-17 after the Midshipmen got out to an early lead and never looked back.

The second set was much of the same for Lehigh, trailing 14-7 before it called its first timeout of the set. Navy rattled off four more points to take an 18-9 lead, until the Mountain Hawks won three points, trailing 18-11 to force the Mids to call time. After falling behind 23-14, Lehigh won five consecutive points to come within four points, down 23-19 and eventually 24-21 before Navy took the last point after a kill from Sofia Hruby to win the set, 25-21 and take a commanding 2-0 lead in the match.

It seemed as if the match was over for Lehigh heading into the third set, but the Mountain Hawks wanted to make sure that they could get the momentum back and turn the tables a bit to extend the night. Navy took a 15-11 lead into the media timeout and that short break was all Lehigh needed to make a well-planned run.

A Hannah Wright kill and two Navy attack errors pulled Lehigh within one point before Navy took a 16-14 lead on a Sabrina Lancaster attack error. But that would be the last point of the set for the Midshipmen, after Navy took a timeout with a 16-15 lead. Lehigh got three straight kills from Emily Poole, Alina Lam and Lancaster and followed that up with five straight Navy attack errors and a service ace for Jess Donaldson, ending the set on a giant kill for Lancaster from Lam to end the set on a 14-1 run out of the media timeout and a 10-0 run after Navy took a timeout with a 16-15 lead. Lehigh came all the way back and won the third, 25-16 and stayed alive heading into the fourth set.

Lehigh tried to stay close in the beginning of the fourth set, trading leads with the Midshipmen, but Navy took a 13-10 lead into another Lehigh timeout before the Mountain Hawks went on another run, albeit tiny. Three straight points had Lehigh back in a tie with Navy at 13 before they took four straight to increase Lehigh's deficit to 17-13. The Mountain Hawks got the score back to 23-21 after a Wright kill, but back-to-back kills from Maddi Sgattoni ended the comeback threat and gave Navy a 3-1 win over Lehigh.

"The match definitely had some strong positives in it," said head coach Alexa Keckler. "There's been a couple players that have really focused on fixing some things and improving shot selections and defensive movements and I think that is a positive takeaway.

"We just waited too long to battle and put ourselves in a tough deficit. So, I think learning from that is going to be extremely important going into tomorrow, we played Navy much, much tougher than the last time we faced them this season, so clearly we've made some massive improvements."

Wright led the way with 14 kills, adding eight digs and finished with an attack percentage of .306. Lancaster registered 10 kills with nine digs and picked up the 800th kill of her career, finishing the night with 806 career kills. She becomes the second Mountain Hawk this season (Julia Pressly) to reach the milestone and currently sits 15th in program history with her senior year to play in 2020. Lauren Bright finished with four total blocks, upping her career total to 397, just three shy of 400. Libero Jess Donaldson tallied 15 digs to lead the team, while Alina Lam had 31 assists.

"I thought Hannah had a spectacular night," said Keckler. "She hit the ball probably the best I've seen her play over the last two seasons. I thought she found the floor and found a way to make every set work.

"I think it took Sab a little bit longer to get going, but once she started figuring out a good groove, then she became pretty offensive as well."

After hitting .129 in the first set and .073 in the second set, the Mountain Hawks hit .360 in the third with 11 kills and just two errors and .400 in the fourth, with 13 kills and a lone error. Lehigh out-blocked the Midshipmen, 8-7.

Lehigh returns to Grace Hall on Saturday at 3 p.m. against American for Senior Day in the final match of the five-match home-stand. It will also be the penultimate home match of the regular season until Lehigh closes its home slate against Loyola on Nov. 12.

"Hopefully we're emotionally sound and hungry for the win tomorrow," Keckler said. "I think that's going to be extremely important and just taking what we've learned from tonight's match and applying a few things to tomorrow's but we've got to come ready and come prepared and we need to come hungry to get this win against American."

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