The Lakeland Dreadnaughts are taking a road trip to challenge the Auburndale Bloodhounds at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday. Each of these teams will be fighting to keep a win streak alive as Lakeland comes in on three and Auburndale on eight.
Lakeland took a three-set loss the last time they faced off against Bartow, but this time they managed to keep it close and that made all the difference. The Dreadnaughts sure made it a nail-biter, but they managed to escape with a 3-2 victory over the Yellow Jackets on Tuesday. For those keeping track at home, that's the closest win the Dreadnaughts have posted since March 12th.
Lakeland was actually outscored in aggregate across those five sets (114-101), but they still managed to win. The final score came out to 16-25, 15-25, 28-26, 26-24, 16-14.
Casen Feacher and Brandon Bowling were among the main playmakers for Lakeland as the former had eight digs and three aces and the latter had 12 kills and 12 blocks. The dominant performance also gave Bowling a new career-high in hitting percentage (35%).
Meanwhile, Auburndale was able to grind out a solid victory over Lake Wales on Tuesday, taking the game 3-1.
Auburndale had a slow start but a hot finish: after dropping the first set, they turned around to win the next three. The match finished with set scores of 22-25, 25-13, 25-20, 25-14.
Lakeland better focus on containing Bryson Barajas and Sebastian Crespo-Jimenez as the pair were huge in Auburndale's win. Barajas had 13 digs, while Crespo-Jimenez had 23 digs and four aces. Crespo-Jimenez is crushing it when it comes to digs: he's had at least 19 every time he's taken the court this season. Jonathan Troughton was another key player, getting 13 digs.
They weren't the only good server: Auburndale was lethal from the service line and finished the game with 12 aces. That's the most aces they've managed all season.
Lakeland's record now sits at 7-9. As for Auburndale, they pushed their record up to 9-4 with the win, which was their fourth straight on the road.
Lakeland skirted past Auburndale 3-2 when the teams last played back in March. The rematch might be a little tougher for the Dreadnaughts since the squad won't have the home-court advantage this time around. We'll see if the change in venue makes a difference.
