Columbia University
Brown
Late Rally Leads Brown To 3-2 Victory Over Lions
10/3/2015 7:50:00 PM | Volleyball
PROVIDENCE, R.I. – The Columbia volleyball team (3-9, 1-2 Ivy League) came out strong in the first two sets on Saturday night but was unable to hold on as the Brown Bears were able to fight back from a 2-0 deficit to take a five-set victory over the Lions (26-24, 25-20, 24-26, 20-25, 8-15).
The Bears jumped out to the early lead in set one with a 9-4 advantage, but with the help of a big kill by Kesi Neblett, the Columbia offense began to click together as it rallied with six unanswered points to take back the lead, 10-9.
From that point on, the two teams battled back and forth until Neblett was able to tie things up at 24-24 with a big kill before a pair of Brown attacking errors gave the Lions a 26-24 set-one victory.
The second set remained close all the way to a tie at 20-20 until Neblett and Zoe Jacobs were able to team up for back-to-back kills, forcing a Brown timeout. The timeout didn't work for the Bears, however, as Jacobs came out with a big kill before back-to-back kills by Luciana Del Valle sealed a 25-20 set-two victory for the Lions.
Columbia looked to have the match in the bag with a 22-17 lead in the third set, but the Bears began to rally back with a 6-2 run to even things up at 24-24 before taking the set victory, 26-24, to send it into a fourth set.
Unfortunately the momentum would continue from that point on for the Bears as they took the next two sets, 25-20 and 15-8, respectively, to seal a 3-2 victory over the Lions.
Del Valle finished the match with another double-double after posting up 16 kills and 12 digs for a team-leading 17.5 points while Kesi Neblett posted up 15 kills for a .407 attacking percentage. Zoe Jacobs and Bailey Springer also hit double-digit kills in the match, posting up 12 and 11 kills, respectively, for Columbia. Jennifer Petrovich also picked up a double-double after 53 assists and 11 digs while also adding a kill on the night.
The Lions will return to action next weekend as they round out their five-game conference road trip against Princeton (Oct. 9) and Penn (Oct. 10).
