University of Southern Mississippi Athletics
Southern Miss
East Carolina
Southern Miss Volleyball Tops East Carolina 3-0
10/14/2011 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
Oct. 14, 2011
Box Score | Box Score in PDF Format 
The Golden Eagles snapped a three match losing streak and improved to 8-11 overall and 2-5 in Conference USA play.
Senior Ashley Mell led all players with a match-high 16 kills while junior Halie Ecker added 12 kills and senior Amelia Hendrickson chipped in 10. Senior setter Kelsea Seymour dished out 43 assists and became only the second Golden Eagle player to record over 4,000 career assists in a career. Southern Miss finished the match with a .307 hitting clip while East Carolina finished with a .050 hitting percentage.
Senior libero Lisa Knecht finished with 18 digs while Seymour picked up 14 digs. Hendrickson and Mell added double-doubles collecting 11 and 10 digs, respectively. Mell also registered six total blocks.
"I was really happy with the way Kelsea ran the offense tonight," coach Abbey Sutherland said. "We mixed things up and she was able to use a lot of different hitters in different situations which made us less predictable. I was happy with SJ (Bowden) performance, pretty much everyone. It was a total team effort. We worked on finishing matches last week in practice and they did this with a statement."
Back-to-back kills by Ecker, an ECU error and a Lauren Sears kill put the Golden Eagles ahead 8-3 to start the first set. The teams traded points as Southern Miss maintained a small lead before the Golden Eagle tacked on three more points in running the score to 12-7. A 5-4 run gave USM a 17-11 lead and forced ECU to burn its second timeout. The Eagles did not slow down as Southern Miss finished the set with an 8-3 run for the 25-14 win.
Southern Miss started the second two running out to a 9-3 lead. East Carolina was able to cut the lead to 10-6 before Mell, Sarah Jane Bowden and Hendrickson collected a kill to run the lead to 13-6. ECU got a point back on Amanda Lutzow's kill, a Hannah Allgood block and USM error to cut the lead to 13-9. The teams went back and forth for the next four points before Southern Miss tacked on four more points from kills from Hendrickson and Ecker and an ace from Hendrickson for the 20-11 lead. Southern Miss ended the set with a 5-2 run for the 25-14 win.
The third set began with three ties and three lead changes before Southern Miss rattled off three straight points for the 7-4 lead. The teams battled for the next six points before three kills by Mell and Seymour forced ECU to take a timeout with the Eagles leading 13-7. Out of the timeout, ECU had another error before Britney Roper got a kill. Mell answered with a kill and a combo block by Bowden and Mell had ECU calling its final time as the Eagles led 16-8. Out of the timeout, Southern Miss added three more points before Roper ended the run with a kill. Southern Miss finished the set strong, scoring the final five points for the 25-11 win.
Lutzow led the Pirates with 10 kills and 10 digs and Shelby Beasley added 13 digs.
Southern Miss remains at home when the Eagles host Marshall at 12 p.m., on Sunday.
