ST. CHARLES, Mo. - Lindenwood women's volleyball (3-4, 0-0 OVC) won their opening match of the weekend at the Lindenwood Invitational over Southern Illinois (5-3, 0-0 MVC) by a final score of 3-2. The Lions posted 77 kills on Friday which marked their most in their NCAA history (Division I and II).

"That was great team performance," said head coach Will Condon. "I thought we did an excellent job of coming in from last weekend and making some adjustments. I thought Carbondale played really well. They had a lot of quality touches at the net and made some great defensive plays to lengthen rallies. They made us have to play at a really high level in order to beat them. Carbondale was passing really well and we had to up our service pressure. I thought we were able to do that when it mattered most in Game 5. I was proud how we stepped up to that challenge."

Autumn Bax had a career day for Lindenwood with a career-high 18 kills on a .455 hitting percentage. The freshman made just her second career start. Nyah Wilson also had a team-high 18 kills on .350 hitting while grabbing her third double-double of the season with 19 digs.

With those 19 digs, Wilson became just the sixth Lion to have over 1,000 career digs. Wilson sits at 1,002 career digs and is just 28 behind Emma Brydels for 5th all-time.

Lindenwood's offense had five players with at least eight kills including 15 from middle blocker Rebecca Janke and 10 from Addy McAleer. It marked the best hitting performance of the season with the team hitting .319 on 188 total attacks with just 17 errors.

"For us to have 77 kills is quite an accomplishment," said Condon. "It says a lot about our team game. We did a great job in our out of system offense. Jessie getting a double-double with digs and assists shows what complete player she is at the libero position. I thought our outsides, Nyah and Addy made some great adjustments from last week and had a great match for us."

Defensively, Lindenwood had five players reach double digits in the digs department including 24 from libero Jessie Seidel. Seidel also had 10 assists for her first double-double. McAleer was able to add 13 digs while Allie Otten and Abby VanBuskirk also had 11 each. Otten led the team in assists with 33 while VanBuskirk added another 23.

Janke led the way at the net with five total blocks including two solo. Lindenwood had 10 total blocks which marked the most this season.

After Lindenwood lost the first set 26-28, they battled back winning the second by a score of 25-17. Lindenwood had 20 kills in the second while hitting .436. Bax had seven of her 18 kills during that set.

The third set saw the Lions battle back from a 8-13 deficit eventually taking a 17-16 lead before the Salukis won the set 23-25. Lindenwood had 17 kills in the third set led by Wilson with five kills and Otten with nine assists.

Trailing 2-1 heading into the fourth set, Lindenwood battled in a set that saw 15 ties and two lead changes resulting in a 25-20 victory. The Lions pushed down 18 kills with only three attack errors in the fourth, tying the match and forcing a fifth set. Lindenwood has now played four out of seven matches this season ending in five sets.

Condon's team controlled the fifth set early taking a 6-2 advantage resulting in a timeout by SIU. The Salukis cut it to as close as one, but Lindenwood pulled away late and ended the match with a kill by Wilson to help LU win their first home match of the season.

The Lions will be back tomorrow afternoon at 4:00 p.m. CT when they host Austin Peay for the final match of the Lindenwood Invitational. For more information go to lindenwoodlions.com.