The Lake Forest College volleyball team extended its winning streak to four matches Friday evening, prevailing 20-25, 25-14, 25-17, 25-17 at Beloit College.
Forester senior Madison Stevens continued her hot streak, pounding out a match-high 14 kills and posting a .433 hitting percentage on the night. She has 41 kills and a .337 hitting percentage in the last three contests.
Junior Mary Gegen also reached double figures on Friday with 10 kills and added 16 digs for her fourth double-double in the last five matches and sixth this season.
Senior Izzi Visnjevac tallied a match-high 24 digs while Lake Forest's setters, sophomore Juli Barrientos and freshman Lilly Robinson, chipped in with 10 apiece. Robinson led the visitors with 20 assists while Barrientos finished with 14.
Junior Grace Franz served up five aces and Visnjevac four. Sophomore Riley Stapley led the Foresters in blocks with three.
The Foresters trailed by as many as seven points in the opening set before winning six straight to make the score 17-16. They were unable to even things up, however, and the Buccaneers pulled away to take the set.
Already ahead 14-10 in set two, Lake Forest won it by taking 11 of the next 15 points, including the last on an ace by Franz.
Beloit led 11-6 in the third set but the Foresters quickly tied the score at 12. The teams were knotted again at 13, 14, 15, and 16 before the visitors pulled away. A pair of aces by Visnjevac and two kills from Stevens, who was 5-for-5 in the set, were included in the six-point run to close it out.
Lake Forest never trailed in set four. A 7-1 run turned the Foresters' 15-12 lead into a commanding 22-13 advantage and they soon finished off the contest with a kill by Barrientos.
With six victories in their last seven matches, the Foresters are now 8-10 overall and 2-0 in Midwest Conference play this season. Beloit fell to 3-12 overall and 1-3 in the league.
Lake Forest will travel to Mount Vernon, Iowa, for Saturday's 1:00 p.m. showdown with nine-time defending conference champion Cornell College.
