Volleyball season ends in SIAC Tourney
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There are many ways to properly surmise the 2016 volleyball campaign for the Lady Golden Bears. Unfortunately, those evaluations are ready to begin after Miles was swept from the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Tournament Wednesday at the Birmingham CrossPlex. Straight-set losses to Claflin (25-20, 25-18, 25-10) and Tuskegee (25-14, 25-19, 25-12) put an end to the program's first season under
Tiffany Hunter.
Miles (9-21) entered the tournament as the West Division's No. 4 seed and knew it would be quite the undertaking to pull off some big upsets to advance in the tournament. But the Lady Panthers, the No. 1 seed from the East Division were a team the Lady Bears saw in the SIAC Crossover last month and after taking a set in the four-set defeat, the team was brimming with confidence. It showed early as Miles led 14-9 in the first set.
But from there, Claflin flexed its muscle. Aided by five attack errors, the Panthers went on a 10-1 run to take over the match. Miles would make nine attack errors in the first game - a number the Lady Bears would repeat in the next two games - and hit -.131 (16-27-84) for the match.
Skyler Johnson had six kills and four aces while
Kayla Ford set up 13 kills in the loss.Â
The loss to Claflin sent Miles to an elimination match against rival Tuskegee, the No. 2 seed from the West Division. The Lady Bears would end the season on a five-match skid and three of those losses would come at the hands of the Golden Tigerettes.
The Lady Bears would hit better as a team against Tuskegee but seemingly had no answer for the Golden Tigerettes' attack. TU hit .451 as a team and made just seven errors the entire match. Miles never lead in the first set and looked headed for sure defeat in Set No. 2 after Tuskegee ran off six straight points to take a 20-13 lead. But two aces by Ford and two kills by senior
Alexus Moore sparked a 6-0 run by the Lady Bears to close to within 20-19.
Tuskegee, though, would rally to finish the set, scoring the last five points to take a commanding lead, From there, Miles looked as if it had run out of gas, The Lady Bears led 8-6 but would, again, fall behind. This time, though, there was no comeback. Down 12-10, the Golden Tigerette shut the door on Miles' season by allowing just two kills by Johnson in running away for the win.
Moore, in her final match, had eight kills and four digs. Johnson had five kills, four aces and two blocks, Ford had 17 assists and
Briana Brown had a team-high eight digs.
