Stephen F. Austin
Montana State
Ladyjacks Kick Off Season With Win Over Montana State
8/24/2007 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
Aug. 24, 2007
Omaha, Neb. - The Stephen F. Austin Ladyjacks volleyball team opened up the 2007 season on the right foot by picking up a win in the season-opening match over Montana State (20-30, 30-19, 30-18, 3-27) at the Bluejay Invitational.
The Ladyjacks (1-0, 0-0) got contributions from nearly everyone as JJ Jones, Lauren Railey and Shelly Swendig all finished with double-doubles and five players finished with a dozen or more digs. Jones would finish with 57 assists and 12 digs for the evening, while Traci Rohde controlled the net with 15 kills and seven blocks of her own.
"It wasn't always pretty, but even with a slow start we are definitely happy with the win," head coach Debbie Humphreys said after the match. "We just had to get out on the court and get the jitters out of the way. It was definitely a good starting point."
Freshmen Kelsey Owens and Laurel Kuepker also had nice nights in their collegiate debuts. Owens would finish with a team-high 27 digs, eight kills and three blocks while Kuepker kept alive 22 digs from the libero spot.
Montana State (0-2, 0-0) would be led by Sarah Allen with 45 assists and Laura Viren with 15 kills. Meghan Albiston would finish with a game-high 32 digs as well.
The first game saw the Bobcats come out on fire, hitting .286 game while knocking in 16 kills against only four errors. Wendy Doutre led the way for head coach Miya Malauulu's bunch with five kills in the first game. SFA helped out the scoring on the opposite side as the Ladyjacks had trouble keeping it between the lines to the tune of 11 errors in game one on their way to a .039 hitting percentage for the first game.
The second game was a different story as SFA took the lead for good at 10-9 early on and never looked back. SFA would churn out a .333 hitting percentage in the second stanza and stretched out the lead as the game progressed. Jones led the offensive showcase with 14 assists in the second game, including finding Owens and Rohde for successive kills to push the score to 25-17. After forcing a Bobcat timeout, Rohde kept the momentum going with another kill. The lead would grow as large as 12 before Rohde and Railey combined to block a Maria Peterson shot to finish the game at 30-19.
In the third frame it was Shelly Swendig that had the hot serve early on, as she found holes in the Bobcat defense for a pair of aces to give SFA an early lead at 6-4. She would finish with three aces in game three alone and four for the match. Not long after that it was another junior, Railey, that found the stroke as she knocked down three kills in relative succession to keep SFA out in front at 12-10 before Rohde and Jones took over again. Rohde quickly found herself in the middle of the action after re-entering at 13-11 to knock down a pair of kills and force another Bobcat timeout. Immediately out of the timeout she hooked up with Owens to score on a block before Jones knocked home one of her seven kills to advance the lead to 20-12. Jones would then serve out five consecutive points to put SFA to a 29-17 lead before she found Swendig for the game-clinching kill and a 30-18 win.
Montana State was not ready to give in early in the fourth game, as a trio of Bobcats would register a kill to grab an early 5-2 lead in the fourth game. However, the Ladyjacks would fight back behind a balanced attack to tie things up at 12 apiece when Rohde and Owens teamed up again to turn back a Nicole Grypiuk attack. SFA would finally take the lead at 17-16 with a kill by Ashley Bailey, but it wouldn't last long as Montana State would quickly tie things back up at 20 apiece. The Ladyjacks would not lead by more than two points the rest of the way until Jones picked up her 19th assist of the final game when she connected with a spiking Rohde to close the door at 30-27.
"We just had to understand the level that we have to play at," Humphreys said. "We expect to have to earn everything that we are going to get."
SFA will continue the Bluejay Invitational on Saturday when the Ladyjacks face off with the Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders at 12:30 p.m. and Creighton at 7:00 p.m. The Blue Raiders knocked off Montana State earlier on Friday in the tournament opener and come in with an explosive and athletic squad that claimed the Sun Belt Conference title last season. The Bluejays earned 21 wins of their own in 2006 and should provide another solid challenge on their home court.
