JACKSON, Miss. -- LeTourneau volleyball split two matches at the Millsaps Invitational on Friday, falling to Austin College 3-1 (28-26, 25-14, 17-25, 25-23) but bouncing back strongly to upend McMurry 3-0 (25-15, 25-15, 25-13).

LeTourneau moved to 4-6 overall, Austin College improved to 5-4, and McMurry fell to 3-4, respectively.

The highlight of the day was back-to-back ASC Defensive Player of the Week Morgan Nix, who set another program record in the McMurry match with 32 digs, which is the most in a three-set match in program history. Nix now owns every dig record in program history in the NCAA era, another feather in the cap of her exceptional career.

In terms of team highs, offensively, Kaci Monk collected 26 kills and Reina Lawson added 61 assists and seven service aces. Defensively, Morgan Nix had 74 digs and Allison Smith added eight blocks. 

The first match proved to be a momentum battle that the YellowJackets could not overcome, falling behind 2-0 early to the 'Roos and while LeTourneau fought well and took the third set, they fell in a nail-biter of a fourth set, 25-23.

After such an emotion-laden first match, the YellowJackets had little time to prepare a response, with the next match against McMurry immediately following. 

They responded anyway.

After going down 8-5 early in the first set, LeTourneau rattled off a 16-3 run, with Allison Smith notching three kills in that stretch. Allison Smith extinguished a War Hawks attack to record the final point and give LeTourneau a 25-15 win.

The second and third sets were similar stories, with the YellowJackets using huge scoring runs to pull away. A. Smith's kill and two assisted blocks helped close out the second set on a 6-0 run, while a 10-0 run in the third set was punctuated by Monk's three kills and Hannah Payan's two. Nora Lockhart and Dylan Presley ended the match with back-to-back kills.

Austin College was led in kills (14) and digs (16) by TJ Folse, assists by Madison Manning (23), and blocks by Rita Araya (9). For McMurry, Jacee Dinkins had 8 kills, Carli Colbert had 17 assists, and Hannah Page added 24 digs.

UP NEXT

LeTourneau volleyball faces Centenary in their final match of the Millsaps Invitational on Saturday at 12 p.m.

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