TAYLORSVILLE, Utah – The race for No. 2 comes down to the last day of the League One Volleyball regular season.
LOVB Madison, fueled by a 7-0 run late in the fourth set Friday night, defeated LOVB Salt Lake 26-24, 25-22, 21-25, 25-21 to not only win its seventh match in a row, but force a winner-take-all showdown with LOVB Houston on Saturday.
Match stats | LOVB Madison roster | LOVB Salt Lake roster
Houston is 9-6 while Madison improved to 8-7. The winner of Saturday's 4:30 p.m. Mountain match will capture the No. 2 seed in next week's LOVB Finals and the quarterfinal bye into the semifinals that comes with it.
The second match in Bruin Arena on the campus of Salt Lake Community College pits LOVB Austin (5-10) vs. Salt Lake (6-9) at 7 p.m. Mountain. The winner will be the No. 4 seed in the championship tournament.
Both matches can be seen on LOVB Live, DAZN and the LOVB YouTube channel.
"That was a crazy match. I don't think we played our best volleyball, but we found a way to win and that's something we've been doing lately," Madison coach Matt Fuerbringer said. "This team is learning how tough we are leading into this next week.
"So now it's playoff time starting tomorrow. We don't get eliminated if we lose, but it has big implications."
Jennifer Janiska led Madison with 13 kills, getting 10 in the first two sets. She added a block and six digs. Annie Drews Schumacher had 12 kills, six in the last set on seven swings with one error. She had two of her team's six aces, two blocks and 13 digs.
Sarah Franklin also had 12 kills and hit .346 to go with three digs. Ana Beatriz Correa had six kills and a season-best five blocks. Anna Hall had four kills, two aces and two blocks.
Setter Lauren Carlini, whose team hit .245, had four kills in five errorless attempts, 43 assists, two blocks and 11 digs.
Madison broke a 24-24 first-set tie on a kill by Janiska and won the set on a Salt Lake hitting error.
The second set was tied 21-21 when Madison went on a three-point burst that included an ace and a kill by Hall and a block by Drews Schumacher. That set, too, ended on a Salt Lake hitting error.
The third set was all Salt Lake, who never trailed in the frame. The home team also held an 18-15 lead in the fourth before Madison turned it on with a 7-0 run that included two blocks by Correa.
"It was an interesting, weird night of volleyball for both teams, but Madison was able to scratch a few more points off," Salt Lake coach Tama Miyashiro said.
Salt Lake (6-9), which had a 13-12 blocks advantage, got 13 kills from Roni Jones-Perry, who had three blocks and eight digs. Heidy Casanova had 12 kills, her highest total in the last month, a block and two digs. Three players – Tori Dixon, Dani Drews and Skylar Fields – had seven kills each. Dixon, who hit .357, tied her season best with five blocks.
"I think our pin blockers did a good job of setting up the block for us and I can stick my hands up there and say a prayer and hope for the best," Tori said with a laugh. "And it worked out in my favor today. Madison's a really good team with a lot of good attackers, so I'm happy with how we fought."
Salt Lake hit .221. Setter Jordyn Poulter, who had a kill in two errorless attempts, had 34 assists, a block and eight digs. Libero Manami Kojima had 10 digs and four assists.
"We've already tried to reset and get ready for tomorrow because it's another quick turnaround," Miyashiro said.
The LOVB Finals begin Thursday in Louisville, Kentucky, with the No. 4 seed playing No. 5 and No. 3 vs. No. 6. The winners move on to Friday matches against top-seeded Atlanta and either Houston or Madison.
The championship match is Sunday, April 13.
