Southern Miss
Arizona State
Volleyball Eagles Fall To Arizona State, 3-1
9/3/2011 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
Sept. 3, 2011
AMES, Iowa - The Southern Miss volleyball team dropped a 3-1 decision to Arizona State in the Iowa State Challenge Saturday morning.
Halie Ecker and Amelia Hendrickson finished with 14 and 10 kills, respectively. Lisa Knecht led the team with 22 digs while Elizabeth Rinaudo and Kelsea Seymour added 14 and 12 digs. Seymour also had 37 assists in recording a double-double. Ecker chipped in 10 digs for a double-double as well.
Arizona State jumped out to an early lead and never let up. The Wildcats scored eight of the first nine points in taking an 8-1 lead. Southern Miss managed to get within five, 11-6, but the Wildcats continued to keep the pressure on and won the first set, 25-14.
After trading points through the first four points to start set two, Southern Miss then ran out to a 9-4 lead. Following back-to-back kills and a block by Ashley Mell to push the lead to 15-9, ASU took a timeout. Out of the timeout, the Eagles tacked on another point before ASU got a point off a USM error. The Eagles built a 19-11 lead to force Arizona State to call another timeout. Rinaudo then served up the next five points before ASU got a kill, but Hendrickson ended the set with a kill for the 25-12 win.
The two teams played evenly throughout the third set. The biggest lead by any team was three points until late in the set when ASU was able to take a 16-15 and turn it into a 20-15 lead. Southern Miss made one last run, cutting the score to 22-21 before ASU ended the set with two kills and an ace for the 25-21 win.
The Wildcats started set four with a 4-1 lead, but the Golden Eagles came back to tie the set at 4-4 on a Hendrickson kills, Lauren Sears and Hendrickson block and an Ecker kill. Arizona State got three straight points in pushing the lead to 7-4 before USM cut the lead to 7-6 on kills by SJ Bowden and Ecker. ASU built a 13-9 lead, forcing Southern Miss to take a timeout. After the timeout, the Eagles got within three, 16-13, but back to back errors gave ASU an 18-13 lead. Out of another USM timeout, Arizona State closed out the set and match with a 7-4 run for the win.
Southern Miss remains on the road next week, traveling to Milwaukee, Wis., for the Marquette/Milwaukee Invitational, Sept. 9-10. Southern Miss will face Marquette on Friday heading over the UW-Milwaukee for a 7 p.m. match and conclude with Akron on Saturday.
