The Lady Lions dropped their fourth straight match, this one being at home, on Thursday, Oct. 21. The Lady Lions fell to 1-8 in conference play, and 10-16 overall. The losing effort, led by senior outside hitter Allison Jones with 18 points, and sophomore middle blocker Courtney Donald with 12 points, put the team into last place in the East Division.

“I mean yeah, it’s really frustrating because it feels like we’re right there every single time, and I feel like almost, this year more than ever, all the teams in conference are pretty much on the even level, and we can’t get a break. Not get a break, but we’re just right there and it’s frustrating, so it’s kind of down, but we’re working so hard at practice and we know we can get it, but tonight I think we fought like crazy,” said Jones.

The Lady Lions took the first set, 23-25, before dropping the second set (11-25), third set (20-25), and finally the fourth set (22-25). “We were excited that we won that on the last point. And we tried to go out strong,” said Donald, speaking of the first set.

While Jones and Donald led the team in points, freshman setter Lindsey Young led in assists with 29, while junior right side Paige Dollison led the team in digs with 14. Donald also set the tone with six block assists, and freshman outside hitter Cherish Krohn held her own with 10 kills for 10.5 points and seven digs.

While this season is not yet done, one must wonder what is in store for next year.

“I remember when I was a freshman, I was still the same level at the beginning that I was kind of at the end, but this year freshman are taking advice completely different than I’ve seen in a long time and they’re maturing as players and next year is going to be a lot better,” said Jones, on how the freshman have progressed.

Last year, the Lady Lions snapped a recent streak that found them at the bottom of the barrel in the Southland Conference, by beating out Northwestern State. With their out of conference schedule complete, the rest of the games will be spent trying to turn around their 1-8 conference record. The Lady Lions next home game is Nov. 11 at 7 p.m., against the Northwestern State Demons.