Paula Stilkey finished with 8 kills and 8 digs for Mobile, Kelly Sherling had 7 kills and 9 digs and Whitney Knight finished with 7 kills and 7 digs. Melody Tenney had 20 assists for the Lady Rams.

 

Fei Shi led Cal Baptist with 10 kills and 10 digs, while Bree Rauschenbach added 8 kills and 4 aces. The Lancers out hit Mobile .221 to .157 and finished with an 11-2 edge in service aces.

 

The Lady Rams (25-12) face No. 11 Vanguard University Wednesday, Dec. 2 at 3:15 pm and Taylor University Thursday, Dec. 3 at 1 pm to finish pool play action. There are six pools of four teams, and the top two teams from each pool advance to a single-elimination bracket beginning Friday, Dec. 4.

 

The serving game hurt Mobile in the opening set, with Mobile finishing with 1 ace and 4 errors, and Cal Baptist putting up 4 aces and 1 error. The Lady Rams led 4-1 early on three Lancer errors, but Cal Baptist fought back to take their first lead at 6-5 on an Ingrid Carmona ace. The teams battled back-and-forth from there until the Lady Rams turned a 12-13 deficit into an 18-14 lead with kills from Cassy Johnson and Shea McBee and a trio of Cal Baptist errors. CBU answered with a 4-0 run to tie it up, and then turned a 19-18 Mobile lead into a 25-20 win with a 7-1 run thanks to 4 kills and 2 aces.

 

Set No. 2 saw the Lady Rams build a 10-7 lead thanks to a 4-0 run sparked by a pair of kills from Sherling. UM went up 15-10, but the Lancers went on an 8-1 run with four points from the service game to take an 18-16 lead. The Lady Rams pulled within 17-18, but Cal Baptist closed it out with a 7-1 run.

 

In the final set, Mobile led 6-4, but the Lancers went on a 6-0 run thanks to four kills to grab the lead for good.