ST. CHARLES, MO. - The Lindenwood women's volleyball team dropped a heartbreaking five-set match to Tennessee Tech in Hyland Arena on Friday night. 

"This was a great effort by our team," said Head Coach Will Condon. "This was one of those frustrating matches where you do so many things and even score more points than your opponent but still lose that match.  We started off firing on all cylinders and took control. Tech did a good job of bouncing back and making some adjustments, just enough to knock us off our track and find a way to take it from us.  We had some great individual performance, Kenzi was dominating and Rebecca was attacking at a high level.  We get another opportunity tomorrow and one thing we have learned about this team is that they are resilient, they learn and they bounce back."

The Lions dominated the Golden Eagles in the first two sets with ease, taking sets one and two by scores of 25-15. Tennessee Tech found a momentum swing in the third set, holding on to come out with a 18-25 win. The fourth set ended with the same score in the Golden Eagles' favor, forcing the match into a fifth set. 

The fifth set was one for the books, starting with an early Tennessee Tech lead before a huge comeback for the Lions, who were down 3-8 at one point. Hard fought defense and a clean attack brought Lindenwood to a 10-9 lead, which would quickly become a 10-10 tie before the Golden Eagles brought things to a close in their favor, winning the set 11-15 in the end. 

Despite the loss, some big numbers came from the Lions, with some great individual performances from Mackenzi Sifuentes, who had a team-leading 16 kills and strong .419 hitting percentage. Rebecca Janke had the highest hitting percentage for Lindenwood however, recording a .435 from 11 kills on 23 total attempts. Madilyn Dement had an impressive all around performance, coming in second on the kills leaderboard with 13 total and leading the way with five total block assists.

Nyah Wilson had 43 total receptions and zero reception errors while also knocking down the most service aces for the lions with four total. Abby VanBuskirk set a new season record for herself with 53 total set assists. Jessie Seidel had a team-leading 18 total digs, rounding things out defensively for the Lions.

Up next, the Lions will turn around for a quick rematch with the Golden Eagles tomorrow at 2:00pm in Hyland Arena.