The volleyball program at Shawnee State (11-11) picked an excellent time to produce one of its more complete volleyball efforts of the season, as the Bears hit .264 on its attack attempts as a team and posted eight blocks as a unit to avenge a four-set loss to Freed-Hardeman last Thursday with a straight-set victory (25-16, 25-21, 25-15) over the Lions Thursday evening at Ephram White Gymnasium in Bowling Green, Ky.
Front line comes through in big way
While only hitting .137 as a team and posting just two blocks to Freed-Hardeman's 11 total as a team last Thursday, Shawnee State completely flipped the script against the Lions in Thursday's MSC Opening Round as the Bears won in rather convincing fashion.
Macie Rhoads added in another complete effort with nine kills to go along with nine digs and a .333 attack percentage, but around the newly-minted, two-time First-Team All-MSC honoree were three fantastic efforts by Alexis Palazzo, Nash Shelby and Bella Gill.
Shelby, who posted eight blocks, hit .357 on the attack while Palazzo, who also added in eight swats, hit .389 with her own powerful swing while leading the Bears with two solo blocks and adding in a pair of assisted blocks to boot. As for Gill, the 6-1 junior from Wooster posted an excellent performance, leading SSU in attack percentage (.455) while notching six spikes to just one attack error on 11 total attempts. She also added four assisted blocks to bookend a fantastic blocking performance by the Bears.
Kolinoff, Payne, Cochran add own stamps on contest
In diversifying the offensive attack, Shawnee State's Maria Kolinoff and Maddie Payne came up big at every stop, while SSU libero Emilee Cochran led the defensive effort.
Of Shawnee State's 36 kills, Kolinoff (17 assists) and Payne (14 dimes) combined for 31 passes as the head setters on the squad, while Cochran reached double-digits while averaging 4.7 digs per set en route to her team-leading 14 dives in the match.
NEXT UP
With Thursday's victory, Shawnee State advances to play No. 3-seeded Georgetown Thursday evening at 7 p.m. ET/6 p.m. CT. The winner advances to Friday's Mid-South Conference Semifinals, which will be played at Bowling Green High School in Bowling Green, Ky.
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