With last season’s disappointing record dissolving in their mind the Lions volleyball team is making the best of a new season by racking up more Ws in the books after the weekend tournament hosted by University of Arkansas-Moticello.

The Lions walked away from the tournament with two wins and just one loss to the Kentucky Wesleyan Wildcats. The Wildcats were the first opponent for the Lions last weekend. They won the first set of the match by just five points. The Lions came back in the second set to win 25-19, but the Wildcats would take the match by winning set three and four.  As a team, the Lions had a total of seven blocks and 39 kills.  

The second match of the tournament was against the hosting team University of Arkansas-Montcello.  The Lions fell against UAM only once in the second of the four sets played in the match. The Lions come out on top with junior outside hitter Katie Politte leading all hitters with 18 kills and sophomore middle hitter Payton Graves behind her hitting 12 kills.

The first match on Saturday showed what the Lions have be working for and what they are hoping the rest of the season will bring by sweeping Union Tennessee in three sets with the scores of 25-14, 25-19, and 25-21.

Although they dominated Union during the match, setter Abby Finder rolled her ankle; taking her out for the day.

Finder says her ankle is “rather bruised but hopefully I will be good to go by this weekend.”

The second match on Saturday was against the Southern Arkansas Muleriders. The Muleriders took the first set with the score of 25-23, and a close second set 28-26. The Lions were down 7-5 in the third set when suddenly there was a power outage in the Steelman Field House at UAM. The match against the Muleriders will resume from the point of stoppage on Nov. 3 at Robert Young Gymnasium here at Southern. The time of game has not been determined yet.

Tuesday marked the first conference game for the Lions against the University of Central Missouri Mules. The match went through three sets, with the undefeated Mules coming out on top. Although the Lions increased the score difference each set, the sixth ranked Mules still came out with the first MIAA win.

The Lions have their home opener tomorrow at 6 p.m. against Northwest Missouri State.

“We have been waiting for this home match since preseason,” said Politte, “I know that we will have some butterflies, but we will be coming out of the locker room fired up and ready to battle for another win.” Politte went on to say, “We are in a difficult conference, so no team is easy to beat, but we know how to win, and more importantly, we know how to win together. As along as we keep communicating it will be a great match.”