Box Score
Grantham, PA — Say this much about Messiah's final regular-season Commonwealth Conference match against Lycoming College Wednesday night:
It was memorable.
Honoring lone upperclassman Lauren Bourdon on senior night, the Falcons shot out to an early 2-0 lead over the Warriors, fell in the third and fourth sets and then used a miraculous comeback in the final stanza to eke out of Brubaker Auditorium with a 3-2 (25-17, 25-20, 18-25, 22-25, 16-14) win — the team's fifth five-set win of the season.
The picture-perfect ending to Bourdon's final regular-season match in Brubaker was nearly trashed by a pesky Lycoming side, however, as Messiah (16-13, 5-2) was forced to a fifth set for the first time after building a 2-0 lead against an opponent this season.
“We started off the night very well,” said Messiah head coach Judi Tobias, who opened the evening with a tribute to Bourdon over the auditorium's public address system. “We were executing, we were trying some different things, we were clipping along …
“And then they showed up.”
After offering little resistance in the opening stanzas, Lycoming (10-17, 2-5) came out of its collective shell in the third, playing inspired volleyball. The Warriors finished the night with 76 total digs, forcing an improbable fifth set and actually claiming a 7-4 lead in the final stanza.
It was at that point that Messiah rose to the challenge, however.
A kill from freshman Lauren Rees allowed sophomore Megan Wise to get behind the service line, and the Red Lion, Pa. native delivered: Wise served six straight points — encompassing a Lyco timeout — effectively turning the entire match around for the Falcons.
“Megan's floater serve has been really good lately,” Tobias said. “It wasn't a coincidence that we went from being down 4-7 to up 11-7 with her serving.”
Tobias' club kept a narrow lead until a few points later, when Lycoming would make another strong push, anchored by its defense at the net. The Warriors' Megan Schulze and Aibgail Myers came up with a huge assist block to tie the set at 12-12 and — following a kill from sophomore Brynn Lettieri and an attack error by Rees — came up with another tandem rejection to push the visitors to a 14-13 lead.
That's when things got really crazy.
A scoring snafu at the official table erroneously credited Lycoming with an extra point and, to the surprise of everyone in the building, the scoreboard suddenly read 15-13, Lyco.
Game referees Brad Kime and Sandy Platt made eye contact, and signaled that the match was over.
Lycoming's team paused, then began celebrating as if someone had told them they'd just won the lottery.
“My heart might have skipped a beat there,” Tobias said of the administrative error. “I knew the score was 14-13, but when the ref says it's over, you kind of start looking around.”
Fortunately for Messiah, the confusion was cleared after a minute delay and the proper score was restored. When play began again, the Falcons got one of the biggest points of the night, as sophomore Emily Hall slammed a kill on the right side, painting the sideline for just her third kill of the evening.
Hall's vicious hit got Brubaker rocking, while a subsequent kill from Rees would make the building shake. Now trailing 15-14, Lycoming called a timeout, but it wouldn't matter. Freshman Lindsay King finished off the scoring with a kill to the center of the court, ending the match in heart-stopping fashion.
“Lycomig is amazing on defense,” Tobias said. “They really played well to get back in it tonight. I thought we played well in the fourth set, but Lyco's defense was fabulous: We just couldn't put the ball down.”
Twenty-five of Messiah's total 51 kills came in the first two sets, while the Falcons could manage just 16 in the third and fourth stanzas combined. Incredibly, Tobias' club recorded 10 kills in the deciding fifth set — a new season-high.
“Nothing else in the night matters,” Tobias said of going into Wednesday's final frame. “We don't talk at all about what's behind us. All of our focus is on what's ahead. We did talk about Lyco's phenomenal defense, however, and where we thought we could best put the ball against them. We also made it a point to not be conservative. We were going to play to win. We weren't going tips, or roll shots. We were going to go after it.”
Rees (14 kills) and King (13 kills, .242 attack percentage) paced Messiah's aggressive offense, while Lettieri finished with 10 kills on 26 swings. In addition to her marvelous serving (two aces), Wise finished with a team-best 22 digs.
Bourdon supplied 43 of Messiah's 45 assists from her setter position, doing her best to put the Falcons' hitters in advantageous positions against a Lyco defense that came up with three solo and 10 assist blocks.
“Lauren has been an extremely hard worker for us during her time here,” Tobias said. “She's tried anything we've asked of her, and she's worked extremely hard in practice. We'll miss her next year.”
While Wednesday's win was emotional in and of itself, it also secured the number three seed for the upcoming Commonwealth Conference Tournament, as Messiah will now travel to second-seeded Elizabethtown College next Wednesday night. The Falcons will be looking to avenge a heartbreaking 3-2 (25-20, 13-25, 25-23, 18-25, 12-15) decision to the Blue Jays back on Oct. 6.
“We're excited about getting another opportunity to play E'Town,” Tobias said. “We still want to get better between now and that match, though. We want to be tougher defensively. We want to keep improving.”
Messiah will have ample opportunity to do that over the weekend, as the squad will host its final tri-match of the year at Hitchcock Arena on Saturday. Messiah will take on Stevenson University at 10 a.m. and Eastern Mennonite University at 2:30 p.m. Those two teams will face one another at 12:30 p.m.
