BATON ROUGE, La. – The HCU beach volleyball team suffered a pair of defeats on Saturday at the LSU Tiger Beach Challenge held at LSU Beach Volleyball Stadium, falling to the seventh-ranked hosts and Southern Miss.
The Huskies' (1-5) day started with a 4-1 loss to Southern Miss (3-3) in the morning. Playing at the No. 2 position,
Mary Alper and
Abbey Bufkin picked up HCU's lone point of the match in two sets (21-18, 21-18). At the threes,
Kylann Griffith and
Paige Palmer took their dual to three sets (19-21, 22-20, 18-16) before falling. The other three pairings were all closely played with No. 1 pair,
Kristen Kleymeyer and
Kristin Gilmour falling, 21-15, 23-21.
Rachel Heilbrun and
Tatum Lockhardt were downed, 21-19, 22-20, at the fours while
Gabi Axelrod and
Killian Armstrong were defeated 21-17, 23-21.
HCU took a 5-0 loss in the afternoon matchup with the No. 7 Tigers. The freshman duo of
Rachel Heilbrun and
Lauren Vickery, playing together for the first time, took their counterparts to three sets (21-14, 23-25, 15-12) at the No. 4 position.
HCU faces off against North Alabama and Nebraska on Sunday, Mar. 3,with the Lions up first at 8:00 a.m. followed by the Cornhuskers at 2:00 p.m.
