Southern Miss
Marshall
Volleyball Falls to Marshall, 3-2
9/30/2012 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
Sept. 30, 2012
HUNTINGTON, W. Va. - The Southern Miss volleyball team fell to Marshall in a five-set match by the scores of 25-21, 25-21, 21-25, 19-25, 12-15 in Conference USA action Sunday.
Senior Halie Ecker led a trio of Golden Eagles in double-figure kills with 19 followed by Jasmine Crowell with 16 and Quinci Hayward adding 10. Kristen Fleming notched a double-double with 51 assists and 15 digs. Elizabeth Rinaudo recorded a match-high 28 digs while Alex Pfefferle had 18 and Shelby Schacher added 15. Crowell also tallied a team-high seven total blocks. USM finished with 62 kills, 91 digs and 11.0 team blocks.
Southern Miss (6-10, 2-2) took the first set 25-21 as USM out-hit Marshall .297 to .163. The Golden Eagles tallied 16 kills.
The Golden Eagles jumped out to the early lead and it was a lead USM would not relinquish. Marshall did cut the lead to one, but the Eagles were able to hold off the Herd for the 25-21 lead.
Southern Miss started strong in set three, but Marshall got its offense going and finally took a 13-12 lead. From there, Marshall extended its lead to 20-16 before the Eagles were forced to take a timeout. Southern Miss could not cut into that four-point advantage as the Herd won 25-21.
Marshall (14-5, 4-1) ran out to an 8-4 lead to open the fourth set. Southern Miss could not get its offense going as the Herd took the fourth 25-19 in forcing a fifth set.
Marshall led early 4-2 before USM used a 5-1 run for a 7-6 lead. The team battled back and forth for the next eight points as Marshall held an 11-10 advantage. After the Southern Miss timeout, Marshall added another point for the 12-10 lead. After a Marshall's service error to cut the lead to 12-11, Marshall was able to close out the set using a 3-1 run for the 15-12 win.
Laura Der and Katy Schad recorded double-doubles for Marshall. Der finished with a match-high 21 kills and 16 digs while Schad had 17 kills and 24 digs. Sacha Byous-McConnell also had 14 kills. The Herd finished with 62 kills, 83 digs and 10.0 team blocks.
Southern Miss returns home to host Tulsa on Friday and SMU on Sunday.
