LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN -- The Covenant volleyball team saw its nine-match win streak come to an end on Wednesday night with a 3-1 (25-19, 17-25, 25-21, 25-18) loss to visiting Birmingham Southern inside Barnes PE Center.
The loss snapped the long win streak, which tied for the longest in program history. Covenant (16-10) has pieced together three nine-match win streaks in the last four years, including in back-to-back seasons.
Before the match, Covenant honored its four seniors: Kelsey Mathis, Hannah Rogers, Jaclyn Stuart and Chelsea VanDyk. The group has been a part of 89 victories over their careers, a conference regular season championship (2012) and the most wins in a season in program history (2014).
All four saw action in the opening set. The Lady Scots and Panthers went back-and-forth in the set that saw 10 ties and four lead changes. Birmingham Southern eventually took the lead for good late in the set to gain a 1-0 match lead.
Covenant rallied with a second set victory to even the match. The Lady Scots jumped ahead 7-3 after a Ginny Moore kill followed by a Panther error. Covenant extended the lead to 16-10 on Morgan Opgenorth's kill and claimed the set on a VanDyk kill.
The third set was also a tight battle with six ties and four more lead changes. Much like the first set, the Panthers were able to take control late in the game, this time breaking a 14-14 tie to go ahead 20-15 and take a 2-1 match lead. Birmingham Southern led throughout in the fourth set to get the win.
Ginny Moore and VanDyk had nine kills apiece, while Schuyler Moore had 32 assists, 16 digs and seven kills. Ariana Buchanan led the way with 19 digs and Stuart tallied 17 of her own. Ginny Moore and Hannah Stewart had 15 and 11 digs, respectively. Olivia Becker registered seven kills and Opgenorth had five.
Birmingham Southern (22-4) received 13 kills from Jeneva Salter and 10 from Marjorie Ward. Katie McCormack had 39 assists, while Lauren Bedford collected 27 digs.
UP NEXT
Covenant will finish the regular season on Saturday in Raleigh, N.C., with a USa South quad-match. The Lady Scots face host Meredith at 10 a.m. and Methodist at noon.
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