Box Score NEWBERRY, S.C. – The King University women's volleyball team may have gotten off to a slow start on Friday, and early Saturday morning, but the Tornado bounced back to earn their first win of the young season. King dropped the first set to Columbus State University at the Newberry Wolves Invitational, but came storming back to take the final three sets 25-22, 25-15 and 25-19.
The Cougars (1-2) started on fire, scoring the first four points of the match, and opened up an early 8-2 lead over the Tornado. King (1-2) fought back to get within 13-11 following a Lauren Willoughby kill, but Columbus State answered with a 5-0 run to open up a lead and ultimately take the opening set 25-19.
King had to fight back again in the second set, overcoming a 4-0 deficit to start the frame. The Tornado got within one point on five occasions before Summer Kremer finally evened the score at 13 with a kill. She followed that with another kill to give King their first lead of the match and Olivia Underwood served up an ace to give the Tornado a 15-13 advantage. Willoughby gave King their largest lead of 19-15 with another kill before the Cougars made a run. Columbus State evened the score at 22 before the Tornado closed the set on a run. Following a Cougar service error, Jordan Baty registered one of her seven kills in the match and Underwood evened the match at 1-1 with a service ace.
The Cougars grabbed the early lead in the third set, but the Tornado offense continued to click as Kremer gave King a lead with a service ace and Willoughby followed with a kill to give King an early 4-2 advantage. The Tornado never relinquished the lead from that point on, gradually extending their advantage throughout the set. Willoughby, Kremer and Baty registered consecutive kills to stretch the lead to 20-11.Grace Underwood gave King the 25-15 win, giving 2-1 lead in the match with one over her nine kills in the match.
With the score even at three apiece in the fourth set, Sarah Collins started a quick Tornado spurt with a kill that was followed by a Casey Williams ace. Collins then added another kill to give King a 6-3 advantage. Kremer added another kill to give the Tornado a 12-6 advantage. From that point on, Columbus State never got closer than four points as King took the set 25-10 and the match 3-1.
Kremer led the Tornado with 17 kills while Willoughby joined her in double figures with 12 terminations. Payton Tipton posted a match-high 19 digs while Olivia Underwood dished out 41 assists to go along with nine digs and three service aces. Williams joined Tipton in double figures with 10 digs.
The Tornado hit .287 in the match while holding Columbus State to just a .197 attack percentage.
King will be in action again tonight when the take on USC Aiken in the final match of the Wolves Invitational. First serve is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. Newberry College will provide live stats and live video, both links can be found on KingTornado.com.
