Volleyball Splits in SLIAC Tri-Match

BATESVILLE, AR -- The Blackburn College Volleyball team took on Eureka College and Lyon College Saturday in the final St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference tri-match of the season and swept Eureka 3-0 but fell to the hosts 3-1 in a tight match. 

Freshman Rylea Black led the BC offense with 20 kills while hitting .269 through the two matches. Senior Ella Person added 17 kills with sophomore Rean Ward posting 14 and senior Zoe Mitchell had 11. 

Junior Kenadee Frey posted 59 assists and will set a new school record for assists in a career with one assist in her next match. She also finished with four aces with senior Payton Moeglin chipping in with three aces. 

Defensively, freshman Elexus Frey tallied 48 digs. Frey notched 35 digs with freshman Marissa Perez getting 23 and Ward with 21. 

Mitchell contributed to the defense with a total of nine blocks through the two matches, posting four solo and nine block assists. Black also had four solo blocks. 

Against Eureka, the match stayed close throughout with BC getting their biggest lead at 18-15. However, the Red Devils rallied to go ahead 23-20 before three EC attack errors and a kill from senior Becca Benoit made it 24-23 Blackburn. The teams continued to trade points until 28-28 when K. Frey got a kill followed by another Eureka attack error gave BC the 30-28 opening set win. Blackburn controlled the second set to win 25-16.

The third set saw the Beavers take a 13-9 lead before Eureka bounced back to lead 17-15. At this point, the Beavers responded and closed out the set on a 10-4 run to win 25-21 and capture their fifth sweep of the season. 

The second match featured Lyon take the first set 25-21 with neither team taking much of a lead until the score was 20-20 when the hosts closed out the set with a 5-1 run to win 25-21. Blackburn bounced back strong in the second set and won it 25-19. However, Lyon was able to take the next two sets 26-24 to capture the 3-1 victory. 

Blackburn will now turn their attention to the postseason as they qualified for the SLIAC Tournament for the sixth straight season. The #5 seed, the Beavers will travel to Mississippi University for Women Thursday night to take on the #4 seeded Owls. The winner will advance to Saturday's semifinals at Greenville.