Eagles Fight Back to Take Tough Road Match
DANVILLE, Ky. – Asbury’s volleyball team had to battle back on Tuesday night for a 3-2 (29-27, 25-21, 20-25, 13-25, 16-14) win over Centre College. The Eagles were down 13-8 in the final set after winning the first two, but they battled back to win eight of the final nine points for their 16th straight win.
Dena Busse led Asbury (29-4) with a career-high 19 kills and added four total blocks. Her previous career-high was 13, which she last accomplished against Cumberlands on October 7th. Busse was one of the few bright spots on the offensive attack as the Eagles hit only .127 for the match, the lowest in 13 matches as they wrapped up a stretch of six matches in six days.
The Eagles started out the match hitting .306 in the first set with 15 kills and followed that up with 16 kills and a .250 attack in the second set. They had more errors than kills in both the third and fourth sets before bouncing back in the fifth to hit .267.
Lindsay Ibold had 12 kills in the match, the 15th time she’s had 10 or more kills in a match. She also passed the 300 kill mark on the season for the third straight year. Her career total of 1,086 currently ranks fifth all-time, 31 behind fourth place.
For the 18th time this year Mackenzie Burke recorded at least 20 assists with 23 against Centre giving her 719 for the season, moving past last year’s total of 697 in 19 fewer sets. Jessie Bartlow also had 19 assists in the match.
Kelly Cole surpassed the 30 dig mark for the third time this year with 31, her highest total since recording 35 against Midway back in August. With 32 more digs this season Cole with have the school record of digs in a season and is only 30 away from becoming the sixth Eagle to ever have 1,000 digs in her career.
Asbury’s total of 88 digs is the most for the team this season as four players recorded at least 10 digs. Bartlow and Burke both had double-doubles on the day with 14 and 11 digs respectively to go along with their assists.
The Eagles will travel to St. Louis Pharmacy on Saturday to open a three-match road trip and a four-match conference swing. They will put their 16 match winning streak and 22 match KIAC winning streak on the line against the 6-8, 2-3 KIAC Eutectics.
