SALT LAKE CITY – The Westminster women's volleyball team came from two sets down to force a fifth before falling to Lewis-Clark State (Idaho) 24-26, 16-25, 25-22, 25-12, 8-15 in a Frontier Conference match in the Behnken Field House on Thursday night.
Westminster (10-16, 4-9 Frontier) looked poise to take the opening set as they were able to build a 20-14 advantage. It wasn't enough as Lewis-Clark State (16-8, 10-3) rallied back to win the set despite the Griffins recording a 15-12 advantage in kills.
LC State jumped on the Griffins in the second set, taking an early 9-2 lead. The visitors racked up 16 kills and hit .231 in the set and they held Westminster to only nine kills and .176 hitting. It appeared the match was going to end in three sets, but then the Griffins caught fire and erased a 20-15 deficit behind a couple blocks by
Amara Culpepper and two kills from
Alexis Aalona.
That momentum carried into the fourth set where the Griffins scored the first five points and never trailed. They only had eight kills in the frame, but they forced LCSC into 14 hitting errors and -.222 hitting while notching four blocks. It would be the Warriors that took the early lead in the fifth as they never trailed while getting eight kills and committing zero errors to close out the victory.
Aalona started slow for the Griffins, but she came on late to lead the team with 15 kills. She extended her double-double streak to 11 straight matches by posting 14 digs in the match. Culpepper and her fellow freshman middle blocker,
Desiree Wickwar, had nine kills apiece and Culpepper added a career-high 10 blocks to become the first Griffin since 2010 to double-digit blocks.
Josie Hegerle and
Jaden Green provided the Griffins with some life late in that third set. Hegerle recorded 16 assists and green went for seven kills and 12 digs.
Marissa Verduci led three Warriors in double figures with 16 kills. Desiree Nielson added 11 kills and seven blocks for LC State as they secure the No. 2 seed for next week's Frontier Conference Tournament.
Westminster will close the regular season on Saturday when they host Montana Tech in the Behnken Field House at 2 p.m. MT. A win by the Griffins will give them the No. 5 seed at the conference tournament while a loss could leave them anywhere from sixth to eighth. The team will honor Aalona in her final home match as a Griffin during the break between sets two and three.
