Southern Miss
UCF
Volleyball Eagles Outlast UCF, 3-2
10/23/2011 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
Oct. 23, 2011
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"I thought we played composed during the entire match and we needed to bring that back and not panic," head coach Abbey Sutherland said. "We got into a couple of good rotations and took advantage of what was going on, on the other side and took it point for point. I told them that it's really important and don't worry about the outcome, but if you take care of one point at a time, you will eventually take care of business."
Senior Ashley Mell led Southern Miss (11-12, 5-6) with 26 kills while Amelia Hendrickson and Sarah Jane Bowden added 18 and 16 kills, respectively. Lauren Sears chipped in 11. Senior libero Lisa Knecht posted 30 digs, while Hendrickson had 18. Elizabeth Rinaudo and Mell tallied 13 digs apiece. Setter Kelsea Seymour handed out a career-high 72 assists to go with 12 digs. Sears also led the Eagles with eight total blocks, while Bowden and Seymour had six and five blocks, respectively.
"I thought we did a good job of running a balanced offense and caught UCF off guard at times," Sutherland said. "I knew we had to get a lot of kills because UCF is a very good offensive team. We had to answer back to their power. Kelsea did a great job of spreading the offense and having an idea of who was hot at the time and going back to them."
Southern Miss out-hit, out-killed, out-dug and out-blocked the Knights. The Golden Eagles totaled 75 kills on .228 hitting, 96 digs and 16.0 total team blocks. UCF finished the match with 66 kills on .171 hitting, four aces, 87 digs and 12.0 team blocks.
Angelica Crump and Evija Vilde recorded 24 and 22 kills, respectively, for UCF (13-9, 5-6). Vilde also led the Knights with 23 digs while Meredith Murphy had 20 digs. Rachel Vukson dished out 59 assists to go with 16 digs.
UCF pounded out 14 kills on a .140 hitting clip while holding the Golden Eagles to .093 hitting in the first set. Vilde led the way with seven kills for the Knights. Bowden and Hendrickson combined for nine kills for the Eagles, but it wasn't enough as the Knights took the set, 25-23.
In the second set, five different players recorded at least one kill for the Golden Eagles as USM recorded a .366 hitting percentage in taking the second set, 25-19. Mell and Bowden combined for 10 kills and did not commit an error as they finished the set with .417 and .833 hitting clip, respectively.
Southern Miss took a two set-to-one lead when the Eagles tallied 16 kills on .325 hitting. Mell, Sears and Hendrickson did most of the damage as they finished with five and four kills, respectively. The Golden Eagles also came up with 10 total blocks in getting past UCF, 25-19.
UCF's Vilde and Crump tallied five kills apiece as the Knights were able to tie the match and force a fifth set with a 25-20 win.
UCF opened the fifth with a 3-0 lead and forced Southern Miss to take a timeout. However, UCF was able to maintain the momentum and led 6-1 and prompting the Eagles to call their second timeout. Out of the time, Mell answered with a kill to get to 6-2, but UCF got a kill from Crump and Vilde to put the lead to 8-2. UCF led 10-4 before Sears sparked a 3-0 run in cutting the lead to 10-7 and a UCF timeout. UCF got a kill to push the lead to 11-7, but a service error and a big block by Sears and Seymour gave the Golden Eagles new life in cutting the lead to 11-9. After another UCF error, Crump put the Knights up 12-10. Mell then pounded down three straight kills to give USM a 13-12 lead. Out of the UCF timeout, a UCF error gave the Eagles set point, but UCF's Crump put down a kill and Vilde and Tory McCutcheon followed with a big block to tie the set a 14-14. Crump answered for UCF again in giving the Knights a 15-14 lead, but Mell answered with a kill for Southern Miss to tie the set yet again. The teams continued to battle down the stretch until Hendrickson came up with a kill to tie the set at 19-19. The Eagles were able to close out the set with back-to-back kills from Mell and Halie Ecker for the 21-19 win.
Southern Miss hits the road for a pair of C-USA matches at Marshall on Oct. 28 and East Carolina on Oct. 30.
