Lancaster's career day sparks Mountain Hawks past Bucknell, 3-1

Saturday, September 28

Lewisburg, Pa.

4:00 PM

Lehigh University

8-7

Bucknell

11-1

Lehigh

Bucknell

Photo by: Josh Liddick

Lancaster's career day sparks Mountain Hawks past Bucknell, 3-1

9/28/2019 11:35:00 PM | Volleyball

Box Score

LEWISBURG, Pa. — For the second consecutive day, Lehigh volleyball was able to take down a streaking program, this time at the expense of Bucknell, closing out the four-set match by a score of 3-1 (25-21, 21-25, 25-19, 25-22). The loss was the Bison's first in 10 matches as the Mountain Hawks start off Patriot League play with a 2-0 record. Lehigh is also in the midst of a three-match win streak of its own.

The Bison started off the first set with a bit of a run, getting out to an 8-5 lead right off the bat. Trailing 13-11, the Mountain Hawks rattled off four straight points to take a 15-13 lead following two Bucknell attack errors and a pair of kills for Sabrina Lancaster. Lehigh and Bucknell kept battling before the Mountain Hawks claimed the final four points of the set ending with a kill by Emily Poole to win it, 25-21. As a team, Lehigh hit .196 from the floor with 15 kills on 46 attacks.

After Bucknell claimed the second set, 25-21, the Mountain Hawks rallied back out of the break to take control of the third set. The third started off with back-to-back points for Lehigh after a bad set for Bucknell followed by an attack error. Leading 3-2, Lehigh went on a scoring frenzy, netting seven straight points to take a 9-2 lead. During that stretch, Poole notched three kills to add to her total for the afternoon. After the Bison battled back for three straight points, Lehigh took six of the next seven points to take a commanding 15-6 lead. With set point at 24-19, it was a Lancaster kill from Alina Lam that won the fourth for the Mountain Hawks, 25-19.

The fourth and what would be the final set of the match was a back-and-forth battle between Lehigh and Bucknell for most of the set before the Mountain Hawks went on a furious run to end the set after trailing 22-19. Lehigh took the final six points to come away with its second league victory of the season. Of the six points, Sabrina Lancaster had three more kills to finish out her career day with 19 total kills.

Lancaster ran wild on Saturday with another unbelievable performance, making it three strong performances in a row dating back to last weekend against UNCG. She finished the match with 19 kills and 20 digs, another career-best after registering 19 against Lafayette on Friday. The double-double is her fourth of the season after registering at least 16 kills in back-to-back-to-back matches.

Junior Hannah Wright tallied 13 kills while senior Julia Pressly finished with 12 to pace the Mountain Hawks. Pressly led the way with a .333 hitting percentage, while the team hit .222 for the match in its entirety. Alina Lam finished with a career-high 48 assists in the victory, while five Mountain Hawks had at least 10 digs with Lancaster (20) leading the way, followed by freshman libero Natalie Mavroidis (17), Lam (12), senior Jess Donaldson (11) and junior Allison Garrett (10).

With the pair of wins, Lehigh has started Patriot League play with back-to-back victories for the first time since the 2017 season. The Mountain Hawks will visit defending regular season champion American next Friday, Oct. 4 before taking on defending tournament champion Navy on Saturday at noon from Annapolis.

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