Columbia, SC - The CIU Rams Women's volleyball team took on the Milligan Buffs Friday night in a match that had a playoff feel to it. Milligan entered the match 12-4 in the Appalachian Athletic Conference behind only Union College and Reinhardt University in the AAC standings. CIU began the evening 7-10 in the conference and battling for a spot in the AAC postseason. The Rams would fight valiantly but fall 3 sets to 1. 

How it Happened

The first two sets would be extremely hard-fought with the Buffs winning the first set 25-23 despite a handful a well-placed serves by Bruna Barrozo during the game. The Rams would trail early in set two until outside hitter Megan Lung would come alive in the set. Milligan would not have an answer for the flurry of Lung attacks, and the Ram would pull out the win 26-24 in exciting fashion. Set three would see the Buffs have their largest margin of victory with a 25-10 win. The Rams would come out in game four, determined to not go down without a fight. Errors by the Buffs and kills by Lung would bring the game to 6-6 tie early on. An ace by Andrea Salas and several kills by De'Asija Harden kept the Rams in striking distance 19-16. After a block by Aniya Marshall, the Rams would be as close as 21-19, but errors would cause the Rams to stumble 25-20 in the final set of the evening. 

Game Notes

• Despite having fewer aces than the Buff's in Friday's match, the Rams still lead the NAIA in total aces with 125.
• Freshman Megan Lung recorded her second consecutive match of 20 kills or more.
• Andrea Salas fought off the Buffs attack with 19 digs while fellow sophomore Bruna Barrozo had 4 aces. 
• After tonight's match setter Mackenzie Sanchez is just 33 assists shy of eclipsing the 1,000 assist mark for the 2019 season. 

Up Next 

CIU hosts Montreat College on Saturday at 1:00 p.m