DALLAS, Pa. – The Lebanon Valley volleyball team battled back after a slow start in a hard-fought 3-0 defeat to top-seeded Misericordia University on Wednesday evening in Middle Atlantic Conference (MAC) Freedom Semifinals at the Anderson Center in Dallas. The Cougars won by set scores of 25-11, 25-23, and 25-22.
 
The Cougars scored on five of the first six serves of the match to take an early lead. Jillian Jefferys recorded a kill, and then an attack error by the hosts cut the deficit to two. Misericordia responded with seven of the next eight points to go up 12-4. Mattea Penner had LVC's lone point during the stretch. Sofia Rios had a pair of kills, and Libby Lindau scored a point for the Dutchmen to make it 13-7. A four-point rally from the Cougars pushed the advantage back up to 10 points. Penner had a kill, and then Sofia Okronley served up an ace. Misericordia answered with the next three points to get to 20. Penner and Teaguen Reynolds had a pair of kills before the Cougars scored the final five points of the set.
 
The Dutchmen were the benefactors of three attack errors by the Cougars to take an early 3-1 lead in the second set. MU won the next five points to go up by three. LVC came right back, and after a service error, Reynolds served the Dutchmen to a 9-6 lead, including three aces. The Cougars were able to stop the run and traded points with the Dutchmen until scoring back-to-back points to make it 11-10. Margaret Cole and Lindau blocked an attack, and then another attack error gave the Dutchmen a three-point advantage. The Cougars brought it back to one before Lindau and Jefferys sandwiched a great serve by Okronley to put the Dutchmen up 16-12. Misericordia countered with a 6-1 run to retake the lead at 18-17. Brooke Olejniczak and Penner recorded kills that gave the Dutchmen the lead back at 20-18. The Cougars were able to tie the set up at 21 before a service error and a Penner kill put LVC two points away from evening the match. Misericordia called a timeout and scored the next four points out of the timeout to take the second set.
 
Misericordia came out strong to start the third set, scoring eight of the first 11 points. Lindau started a run of four consecutive points with a kill to get LVC within one. Cole and Lindau recorded a block assist before Penner and Cole recorded back-to-back kills during the rally. The Cougars responded with seven of the next eight points to take a 15-8 lead. The Dutchmen started to slowly battle their way back as Reynolds, Penner, Jefferys, and Cole all had kills to get LVC within five points at 18-13. The Cougars responded with the next two points to get to 20. The Dutchmen rallied, scoring the next seven points, with a strong service from Rios to even the score at 20. Rios was credited with two aces during the run, while the Cougars also had trouble corralling two of her other serves. Penner had a big hit from the back row for a kill during the run as well. The teams traded points to get the score to 22-22 before Misericordia was able to score the final three points of the match.
 
Inside the Box

• Penner had eight kills in her final collegiate match to finish her career with 835 kills. She also added eight digs to finish with 622 digs.
• Reynolds led the team with three aces. The junior also had two kills, an assist, a block assist, and a dig.
• Jefferys recorded five kills, a block assist, and a dig.
• Rios came off the bench with another strong performance of three kills, five assists, two aces, and six digs.
• Lindau finished with three kills and three block assists, while Cole had two kills and three block assists. Cole finishes her career with 402 kills and 190 total blocks.
• Olejniczak and Riley Mack had a kill each.
• Okronley led the team with seven assists and added a service ace.
• Kylie Nagle had six digs and one assist. Casey Levan had four digs while Jasmine Sullivan added an assist.
• The Dutchmen recorded six aces. They finished the year recording at least five aces in 22 of their 27 matches.

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