MOREHEAD, Ky. – The Lindenwood women's volleyball team (11-2, 1-0 OVC) opened conference play with a statement 3-0 win over preseason favorite Morehead State (4-7, 0-1 OVC) on the road on Friday evening. It was the Lions first ever win in Morehead and extended their current win streak to six matches, their longest since the 2024 regular season.
Lindenwood used separate runs of 7-1 and 6-1 to gain control in the opening set, taking a 25-17 win behind five kills from
Susanna Beretti and four terminations from
Autumn Bax. The Lions came out slow in set two, falling behind 3-0, but after clawing their way back to even, scored eight unanswered points to surge ahead in route to taking the set by a ten-point margin.
Ashley Geluck powered the LU attack with six kills in the frame.
Lindenwood seemed poised to cruise to an easy set three win after pouncing out to an early 9-4 lead, but the Eagles refused to go down quietly and used an 8-3 run to tie the score. However, the Lions scored six of the first seven points out of the media timeout to regain control and were able to close out the match in three sets with a 25-20 victory.
Lauren Ortwerth came on strong with five kills in the set, bringing her match total to a team-high 12 terminations (4.00 KPS) on a .400 attack percentage.
She was followed by
Susanna Beretti and
Ashley Geluck with 10 kills apiece. Beretti ended the match with a team-leading three service aces while Geluck posted a team-best .625 attack percentage while adding a pair of blocks.
Kaci Johnson handed out 32 assists to help the Lions to a team hitting percentage of .294. She also added three blocks, matching
Kylee Richey for the team lead.
On the back row,
Alayna Rudebeck anchored the Lindenwood defense with 13 digs while
Dana Grib reached 10 digs for the fourth consecutive match.
Quotable
"I thought we did a good job of winning the long rallies. Morehead was making us work and take multiple swings, but we stayed persistent. We were able to move out offense around a little and take what they were giving", said Lindenwood head coach
Will Condon.
"Winning on the road is always hard so we appreciate the result. Now we have to be willing to start over tomorrow. We cannot make any assumptions about tomorrow based on today."
Next Up
Lindenwood plays the second half of their weekend series at Morehead State on Saturday, with first serve set for 1:00 p.m. CT.
