The Lake Forest College volleyball team took the first two sets 25-18 and the third 25-15 at Lawrence Wednesday night and has now won six consecutive matches.
The Foresters posted a season-high .258 hitting percentage on the night. Senior Madison Stevens led the offensive attack with nine kills and a .318 hitting percentage. She also recorded three blocks, including the 100th of her career.
Juniors Mary Gegen and Grace Franz were next on the team with eight and seven kills, respectively. Gegen matched Stevens' three blocks and added 10 digs to reach double figures in that category for the sixth straight contest. Franz served up four aces and now has 52 on the year, the highest total by a Forester since 2010.
Senior Izzi Visnjevac led all players in the contest with 17 digs and sophomore Juli Barrientos tallied a team-high 17 assists.
Barrientos was serving as the Foresters won the first three points of the night and led throughout the opening set. The margin grew to nine on four different occasions and, after pounding out her fourth kill, Gegen served as Lake Forest took the last two points and the set.
The Foresters faced their largest deficit of the match at 12-9 in the second set. The visitors then rattled off eight straight points, including three on kills by Stevens, and led by at least four the rest of the way. Gegen's only ace of the night closed out the set.
An 8-2 run early in set three put the Foresters on top for good. They matched their largest lead of the night (nine points) late in the set and match point came on a kill by Franz.
Lake Forest improved to 14-11 overall and 6-1 in Midwest Conference play while Lawrence fell to 1-25 overall and 0-7 in the league.
The Foresters will host Marian University Friday night at 7:00 before closing out the regular season against visiting Grinnell College Saturday at 1:00 p.m.
