ETSU volleyball earns 10th conference win

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (Oct. 28, 2022) – ETSU volleyball won its fourth straight match on Friday, earning a three-set victory over the Mercer Bears in front of a pinked-out crowd for ETSU’s Breast Cancer Awareness match inside Brooks Gym.

The Bucs are the first team to reach double-digit wins in Southern Conference play, improving to 10-1 and 16-7 overall. ETSU has now won 16 of its last 18 matches. Meanwhile, Mercer drops to 7-16 overall and 3-8 in the SoCon with two regular season losses against ETSU.

ETSU won the first and third sets comfortably with dualling scores of 25-18, but battled back-and-forth in the second frame with eight ties and three lead changes. The Bucs eventually pulled away to win 25-20 in the middle set.

ETSU was strong on the attack all match, posting a .300-plus attack percentage for the sixth time this season. The Bucs out-hit the Bears .319 to .186 and had a 43-33 advantage in kills. The Bucs also had a margin of 10 in assists, won 8-3 in service aces and had a glaring 43-29 advantage in digs. Both teams were even on the block.

Sophomore Amanda Lowe (Blacksburg, Va.) matched her career high with 15 kills in the contest, including a kill on the team’s final point to secure the sweep. Lowe also had seven kills in each of the first two sets.

Freshman attacker Brianna Cantrell (Appleton, Wis.) added 10 kills and nine digs for a near double-double, while adding three service aces. Fellow freshman Kimani Johnson (Southfield, Mich.) tacked on nine kills and has now had at least eight kills in five of the last six matches.

Sophomore libero Haley Sanders (Brentwood, Tenn.) led the team with 11 digs. She added another would-be dig late in the match on a rolling dive, but somehow placed it on the other team’s floor for her lone kill of the night. On a similar play, hometown hero McKenna Dietz (Gray, Tenn.) dug one up and landed it over the Mercer front for her first career kill.

Sophomore setter Caroline Dykes (Flower Mound, Texas) had 29 assists Friday to continue her 20+ streak that has spanned the whole season, extending now to 23 matches.

Two of the top teams in the SoCon standings will meet tomorrow inside Brooks Gym, as the Bucs welcome Samford Saturday afternoon at 4 p.m. Samford is tied with Western Carolina for second in the league standings with an 8-3 record.

For more information on Buccaneer volleyball, visit ETSUBucs.com and click on the volleyball page.