Southern Miss
UTSA
Golden Eagles fall to Roadrunners, 3-1
9/24/2017 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
HATTIESBURG, Miss. -- UTSA was just too much for Southern Miss on Sunday afternoon, defeating the Golden Eagles 3-1 (21-25, 25-23, 18-25, 18-25) inside Reed Green Coliseum.
"We weren't the same team as on Friday," head coach Amanda Berkley said. "That's a good team, and their record doesn't indicate it. We just weren't ready to play. I feel like Friday, we played much better as a team and with some fire. We were gritty. We needed more defensive plays today, and we just need to find ourselves and what we need to do to get better."
Southern Miss (10-7, 1-1 C-USA) knocked off North Texas in five sets in the league opener earlier in the weekend, ending the Mean Green's 11-match win streak.
Sunday saw Chandler Marshall lead the squad with 19 kills on the heels of a career-high, 25-kill performance on Friday. Both of those were her two best matches for kills. Alexis Coombs was efficient once again with nine kills and one error in 18 attacks for a .444 clip. It is the eighth time this season she has hit over .333. Kylie Grandy also had 16 kills.
The Roadrunners (3-10, 1-0 C-USA) hit .300 and .382 in the second and third sets and were led by Marijeta Runjic (24 kills) and Brianna McCulloch (22). Amanda Gonzales had 52 assists in their victory.
The Golden Eagles trailed 10-9 in the second set before ultimately going up 15-12 on a Kelsey Chambers kill. The Roadrunners went back up 22-21 to force a Southern Miss timeout, but an attack and service error forfeited a lead they would not get back. The third and fourth set saw UTSA build 11-8 and 11-5 leads that were too much to overcome.
Next up for Southern Miss is a trip to Marshall for a Friday night bout against the Thundering Herd.
NOTABLE
-Southern Miss' 11 blocks were tied for second-best on the season and marked the sixth in double-digits.
-Lainey Aenchbacher made her fourth appearance.
-Dani Ajayi had a kill, solo block and block assist. It was her most since having a career-high four total blocks at Jackson State, Sept. 8, 2015.
