Historic Senior Night from Lawrence Powers @UNCBearsVB to Sink VIkings

Thursday, November 15

Greeley, Colo.

7 pm

University of Northern Colorado

14-12, 10-7

Portland State

5-25, 4-14

Portland State

Northern Colorado

Photo by: Hunter Wilson

11/15/2018 10:38:00 PM | Women's Volleyball

Box Score

Brittany Lawrence set a career mark in kills, while recording one of the highest attack percentages in program history

By: Matthew Kushar, UNCBears.com

Northern Colorado volleyball celebrated senior night on Thursday and the Bears made it a special night with a win over Portland State in four sets [25-16, 17-25, 25-21, 25-18]. Brittany Lawrence made the most of her final home regular season match with a match and career high 17 kills.

"We started [Brittany] in rotation for a specific matchup so size was a big part," head coach Lyndsey Oates said." She was just over them a couple of times and I like that she continues to improve. In the last month, she has made big gains so hopefully she keeps going. We definitely need to play better on Saturday and get to higher level consistently. We were not very consistent or focused. We weren't following the scouting reports and it was little things like not communicating between points. We have to be sharper going into Saturday and the tournament."

The middles for UNC were key against the Vikings, scoring half of the team's kills while combining for only three errors. Lawrence was a towering presence
Thursday night, recording a .727 attack percentage for the third highest in Division I program history. Lauren Hinrichs was also effective with 10 kills and a .348 attack percentage.

"They are just a smaller team and so being 6'4 was helpful in allowing me to score," Lawrence said. "I think the biggest thing was passing. Daisy was just able to find us. Our big thing is we can't set the middle if passing isn't there. Our passing was effective tonight.

The Bears started fast in the first set, with Lawrence scoring seven kills and hitting a perfect 1.000, while the team hit .536 combined. UNC held the Vikings to a .172 attack percentage in the first set to cruise to a 25-16 win and raced out, 1-0 in match.

Errors sunk the Bears in the second set, as the team committed 13, while only recording 11 kills. Portland State did not hit much better, but limited itself to four errors with 10 kills on the way to a 25-17 win to tie the match at one.

The momentum seemed to have shifted to Portland St.'s favor and they doubled up the Bears 10-5 to start the third set. UNC, however, put together a 4-0 run to cut the deficit to 12-10. The Bears had kills from Lawrence and Taylor Muff to fuel the run. After trailing 13-11, UNC went on a 5-0 run to take the lead on the Vikings. The two teams battled back-and-forth, but the Bears never surrendered the lead. Jadyn McCartney came up big for UNC with four kills in the set and Lawrence added another four. UNC cut down its errors to three and went on to win 25-21 to take a 2-1 lead in the match.

"We needed to stay lower error, especially when Brittany was in the front row. We could win points with Brittany in transition and we were shooting ourselves in the foot when we couldn't get her the ball," Oates explained.

"We flipped a switch and started having more fun," Lawrence added. "We all came into the middle, looked each other in the eye and said were going out with a bang at home."

UNC came out firing in the fourth set with a 3-0 lead, highlighted by an ace from Kortney Lockey. Hinrichs was the go-to hitter for UNC, scoring five kills with no errors, while hitting .833. The Bears hit .286 in the set and went on to win 25-18 to secure the match win, 3-1.

For the match, UNC finished with a .234 attack percentage and held Portland St. to a .183 figure.

Game Notes

Along with her career-best 17 kills, Lawrence's efficiency put her into the record books. Her .727 attack percentage is the third-highest in Division I program history for a player with at least 12 kills. Earlier this season, Lawrence recorded a .632 percentage against Montana (10/27) that tied for the seventh highest percentage in a single match.
Lawrence also matched her career-high in blocks with four block assists tonight. She also recorded four against Southern Utah(10/11)
UNC had a solid night at the service line, recording six aces. Taylor Els led the team with two, while four other Bears each scored one ace in the match.
Els recorded 20 digs to extend her streak of double-digit dig matches to 50.
Kortney Lockey is closing in on 1000 career digs, with her 14 tonight, she now has 963 total in her career. She would be the eighth member of the 1000 kill, 1000 dig club in program history.

Up Next
It will be a quick turnaround for Northern Colorado, as they hit the road for the regular season finale against Sacramento State on Saturday night.