Thanks to a balanced attack and timely blocks the Lee volleyball team swept past the Southern Wesleyan Warriors, 3-0 on Tuesday evening in Walker Arena.
Double-double machine Silvia Sartori was at it again as she led the way with 11 kills while chipping in 10 digs. Sartori now has 14 double-doubles on the season.
Quinne Daoust, a sophomore transfer, played her best match as a Lady Flame with 10 slams on a .409 hitting percentage. Another impact transfer, junior Alex Reuter, added nine kills and hit .429 for the contest.
Veteran setter Sadie Johnson made the offense click as she passed the ball from side to side with precision in registering 24 assists.
Kristi Farley would rotate in with 19 helpers but made her presence felt particularly in the service game with a season-high five aces.
"We've been working in practice to push the ball out and work it to the opposite sides of the court to really trick the blockers and I think we did a really good job of that tonight," said Johnson.
Ellisia Kimble stepped up from her middle blocker position and slammed home seven kills while hitting an even .400 on the night.
Defensively the Lady Flames came up with 10 blocks, including several in crucial moments of the second set as they battled back from four points down in a nip-and-tuck game. Reuter led the team with four blocks while Kress leaped high for three and Kimble added a pair.
Lee opened things up with a comfortable 25-15 win in set one but were forced to the limit in set two by the pesky Warriors. The Lady Flames closed the match on a 9-3 run and scored the final three points however to edge Southern Wesleyan, 25-23.
"I was really proud of our girls for battling through some adversity in the second set and pulling it out," said head coach Andrea Hudson. "I didn't call an early timeout because I wanted the girls to respond to that pressure and it was a good opportunity for them to work through those issues on the court. We finally wanted to talk things over when they got to 20 but we knew we wanted to take care of business and not let it run into a fourth set."
Set three was a similar story to the opening set with the Lady Flames dominating from start to finish in winning 25-16. The stingy Lee defense held the South Carolina club to just a .026 team attack percentage in the final set.
Paige O'Conner proved why she leads her team and the Conference Carolinas in kills as she led the Warriors with 12. Annika Jones helped out with 24 assists while Anna Martin delivered 21 digs and added two aces.
With the win Lee improves to 14-6 on the year while the loss drops Southern Wesleyan to 13-9. The Lady Flames are now 28-3 all-time against the Warriors and have won 28 straight meetings dating back to 1993.
"We have nine conference matches left and have some heavy hitters coming up on the schedule so it's nice to have everybody healthy and in practice every day as we hit the final stretch of the regular season," added Hudson.
The Lady Flames will jump back into Gulf South Conference action on Friday as they travel to Alabama to battle Montevallo at 7 p.m. Lee will return home on Friday, Oct. 27 as they welcome Valdosta State to the sport court for a 7 p.m. first serve.