ST. PETERSBURG -- The Eckerd Tritons volleyball team came up short on Friday against the No. 6 ranked Lynn Fighting Knights, suffering its first home loss of the season in four sets.
The Tritons came out on top in a back-and-forth opening set that saw a total of 14 ties. Deadlocked at the final tie of the game at 17-17, the Tritons ran away from the visitors with the next five points scored, highlighted by a pair of kills from
Jaelynn Tunley and a service ace by
Kinga Michalska. Lynn answered with three scores in a row to cut the deficit to two, but
Natalie Aniol's kill halted the momentum to move the serve back over to the Tritons.
Sydney Williams closed out the 25-20 victory with consecutive aces.
After trailing by as many as 17 in the second set, the Tritons stormed back late to make it a game, cutting the margin down to three following five straight points to make it 18-15. Eckerd inched closer and got within two at 21-19, but the Fighting Knights notched four of the final five points to even the match at one win apiece. The Fighting Knights never trailed in the third and fourth frames to take the match by a score of 3-1.
Michalska led the Tritons with 16 kills and a hitting percentage of .256, while also adding two blocks, nine digs, and a pair of aces. Aniol hit .300 on the night with nine kills on 20 swings, and Williams anchored the defense with 22 digs.
The Tritons will be back in action tomorrow afternoon to host No. 4 Barry.Â
