LMU Volleyball Drops First Two Matches Of The Season

GREENEVILLE, TN – The Golden Suns of Arkansas Tech proved to be too much for the Lady Railsplitters in Saturday’s first match in day-two of the Tusculum College Volleyball Classic.  ATU ended LMU’s hope of winning the championship in the semi-finals by coming away with a 3-1 victory over the Lady Railsplitters.

Riding a six match winning streak and yet to sample the bitter taste of defeat, the Lady Railsplitters were defeated 15-30, 16-30, 31-29, and 25-30 to drop to 6-1 on the year. 

After playing extremely well on Friday afternoon, the young and somewhat inexperienced LMU women may have come out somewhat flat and simply took a while to get up to game speed.  In any case, the loss was the first of two the Lady Splitters would suffer on Saturday afternoon.

In the consolation match to determine third place, the Lady Railsplitters were defeated in straight games 24-30, 23-30 and 23-30 by NAIA nationally ranked Martin Methodist to finish fourth overall in the classic.

While this weekend’s play was on a neutral floor, the road won’t show any kindness to the Lady Railsplitters this week when they get a taste of how the South Atlantic Conference does things. This Wednesday LMU travels to Hickory, North Carolina to take on Lenoir-Rhyne College, a future conference opponent. 

After Friday’s play, LRC had recorded a 2-2 record with five matches to be played between Saturday and Tuesday.  It’s possible the Lady Railsplitters may have an opportunity at hand if they can exploit any fatigue Lenoir-Rhyne may be going through after playing such a heavy schedule in a short amount of time.  Wednesday’s match gets underway at 4:00 p.m. in Hickory.