It has been a career season already for Missouri State’s Lily Johnson as she has surpassed her own program’s career kills total, while now slamming down enough to break the Missouri Vally Conference’s kill record.
Johnson took the Missouri State record in a five-set loss to Illinois, passing by Michelle Witzke’s 1,920 kill mark. That same tournament weekend, Johnson finished with a total of 1,945 kills, just three shy of the record. Three kills were nothing for Johnson to achieve, doing so in the team’s five-set victory over Illinois State to open up MVC play. Johnson pounded down 20 kills in the match to move her kill total to 1,965 passing by Bradley’s star Lindsay Stalzer with her fourth kill of the match. This was also the 40th match that Johnson has posted more than 20 kills in her career.
Along with the kill mark, Johnson is slowly climbing up the conference’s dig chart. Johnson surpassed 1,300 career digs to put her at seventh on Missouri State’s list.
The Bears also took a four-set victory over Bradley over the weekend, which further added to Johnson’s kill total. In the match, Johnson slammed down another 19 kills to rack up her career total to 1,984. Now, Johnson is just 16 kills shy of breaking the elite 2,000 kill mark.
Over the course of Johnson’s career, she has been a heavy hitter for Missouri State, coming out with a bang in her freshman season with 495 kills for an average of 3.99 kills per set. Since then it has been over 600 kills per season, which is still a long ways to go for Johnson this season – but there is still another two months of play. To accomplish this feat, Johnson will have to pound down an average of 20.92 kills per match, with just the regular season matches left. Not impossible but a difficult challenge for Johnson in the remainder of the 2017 season.
The team now revs up for a three-match home streak starting with Loyola on September 25, Indiana State on September 29 and Evansville on September 30 – all being MVC teams.
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