Ladyjack Invitational To Kick Off On Friday
9/6/2007 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
Sept. 6, 2007
NACOGDOCHES, Texas - With seven matches down and seven matches to go before Southland Conference play begins, the Stephen F. Austin volleyball team will get its first look at a SLC foe on Friday in the opening round of the Ladyjack Invitational.
The Ladyjacks (3-4, 0-0) will open up the round-robin tournament with Northwestern State, followed by matches with Louisiana-Monroe and Tulsa on Saturday. Play will begin at 4:00 p.m. on Friday with Tulsa taking on Louisiana-Monroe; also, all matches will be able to be followed via Gametracker at www.sfajacks.com.
It was last year at the Ladyjack Invitational that SFA began it's program-best 26-match win streak that lasted until season's end.
Head coach Debbie Humphreys has her Ladyjacks playing well heading into the weekend after consecutive wins over Mississippi State on Saturday and SMU at home on Tuesday. It took SFA all five games to dispose of the Mustangs in the home opener, but it was SFA's defense that held on as it totaled 13 team blocks on the night, paced by Briana Taylor's 10.
Through seven matches the outside hitting tandem of Lauren Railey and Shelly Swendig are pacing the offense in kills - Railey at 3.20 kpg, and Swendig at 2.64 kpg; however, surging up the team leader board in that category is JJ Jones, who has picked up 26 kills in the last two matches (2.89 kpg) and is still leading the offense with 218 assits.
At the net it is Taylor leading the charge as of late with 21 blocks (2.33 bpg) in her last two matches. Add in Traci Rohde's 23 total blocks and SFA is denying 2.44 blocks per game, which is currently third in the SLC.
The Ladyjacks have also tested themselves early on more than any other team in the Southland as one of only two teams - SFA and TAMUCC - to face multiple teams that finished in the 2006 RPI top 50. Add in Tulsa after this weekend, and Creighton, and SFA will have played four teams in its first 10 matches that finished in the RPI top 75 a year ago. No other SLC school will have played more than two opponents of that caliber as of Sept. 8.
The Ladyjacks have had success historically against this weekend's opponents, compiling a 60-0 record against Northwestern State and Louisiana-Monroe under Debbie Humphreys. SFA has picked up 29 of those wins against the Lady Demons, a team coming off a tough 3-0 loss at North Texas on Tuesday.
Brittany Uffelman is in her first season as head coach after spending the past two seasons as an assistant under Leigh Mullins. Uffelman is one of the youngest head coaches in Division I at only 24-years old.
Megan Dockery will look to lead the Lady Demons (1-3, 0-0) just as she did in the team's only win of the season - a 3-0 win at Arkansas State - when she dished out 30 assists along with 12 digs. Her favorite target could be Ariane Damasio who is one of two on the squad with over 40 kills. She was named to the all-tournament team for her efforts at the Bancorp South Classic hosted by Arkansas State.
"We know what to expect from Northwestern State," Humphreys said. "They are a conference team and it will be nice to get a look at them before conference play starts."
The last time these two teams met was a year ago when SFA ended the Lady Demons' season in the first round of the SLC Tournament. In that match the SFA defense was far too much as Northwestern State could only manage a .031 hitting percentage in three games. Briana Taylor had nine blocks and JJ Jones had 36 assists and 15 digs in the Ladyjack win.
John Schmidt is in his second season at the helm of the Louisiana-Monroe program and has five letterwinners back from a squad that finished 5-29 overall, and 2-18 in its first season in the Sun Belt Conference.
The Warhawks have struggled to get started this season, opening with a 0-9 record that includes losses to #23 LSU and most recently to Louisiana Tech. Six of the team's nine losses have been via sweep with its most competitive match coming in its lone match at home, a five-game loss to Nicholls State.
"Louisiana-Monroe has as lot of transfers so it will be interesting to see what they bring to the table," Humphreys said.
Stephanie Hall has stepped in as the go-to hitter for the Warhawks early on with 77 kills (2.48 kpg) this season. The danger from this team could be from the service line as they placed three players in the SBC top 10 in service aces in '06, led by Mari O'Neal's 56 aces for the year. As a team the Warhawks led the conference with 2.29 sapg.
The Ladyjacks are 31-0 all-time against ULM under Debbie Humphreys.
The premier match of the weekend will be a match-up of regular season champions from the Southland and Conference USA when SFA and Tulsa square off on Saturday evening.
Tulsa (6-2, 0-0) tied for the eighth-most wins in the nation last year with 27, and earned the No. 1 overall seed in the CUSA Tournament before being ousted in the semifinals by a red-hot Alabama-Birmingham team.
"I expect all three matches to be very competitive, but especially Tulsa," Humphreys said. "They won the regular season in their conference last year and bring back a lot of talent."
So far in 2007 the Golden Hurricane has found its jet stream, having swept its last six matches. They took tough losses to a pair of NCAA Tournament teams from '06 - Missouri State and Sacramento State - in the season's opening matches, but responded with its current streak that includes a championship of the CSU Invitational last weekend.
Senior Julia Silva is the reigning Conference USA Setter of the Week for the second time in two weeks after posting the league's first triple-double in a three-game win over North Carolina Central. That performance also earned her MVP of the tournament.
Silva has plenty of weapons to work with including senior Fabiola Nepomuceno, who leads the team with 3.46 kpg. Emma Ridley, Hannah Stout and Silva all also average over 2.30 kpg for coach Ed Allen. Overall, the Golden Hurricane is hitting .227 through six matches while holding opponents to a .140 hitting percentage.
This is only the second time Tulsa has met up with SFA in the Humphreys era, with TU taking both matches.
The complete schedule for the Ladyjack Invitational:
Fri., Sept. 7
4:00 p.m. Tulsa vs Louisiana-Monroe
7:00 p.m. SFA vs Northwestern State
Sat., Sept. 8
10:00 a.m. Tulsa vs Northwestern State
12:30 p.m. SFA vs Louisiana-Monroe
4:30 p.m. Louisiana-Monroe vs Northwestern State
7:00 p.m. SFA vs Tulsa
-SFA-
