ANDERSON—The Anderson Volleyballers are headed to the South Atlantic Conference semifinals against No. 3 seed Lenoir-Rhyne at 7 p.m., Friday in Rock Hill.
AU advanced with a 3-1 home win (16-25, 25-12, 25-23, 25-19) over No. 7 seed Mars Hill on Tuesday, November 18.
“I was pleased with how well our serve receive passing bounced back after a few rough outings,” head coach Todd Hay said. “Mars Hill played a really good defense against us early on and it took us a while to get going. Fortunately, we had some good defense of our own to keep us in the sets.”
The first set was a nail biter for the first half, with Anderson having the lead 10-9 at one point, then Mars Hill took charge with a 16-6 run to win set one. That was all Anderson was going to allow. They dominated the next set, then with a tight win in set three, the Trojans took the lead first in the fourth set and never looked back.
Mia Elder led the way offensively with 20 kills. As a team, Anderson had 53. Ava Reeves followed with 13. Ellie Nieporte continued her strong season in assistance with 41 assists.
Defensively, Katy Smith was the leader with 23 digs. She was closely followed by Jamie Juhnevicz with 21. Overall, there were 17 tie scores and 10 lead changes.