Stephen F. Austin
Jacksonville
Ladyjacks Open Season With Pair Of Wins
8/26/2011 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
Aug. 26, 2011
Georgia Southern Box Score | Jacksonville Box Score
STATESBORO, Ga. - The Ladyjack volleyball team got off to a 2-0 start on Friday with a pair of wins over Georgia Southern and Jacksonville on the opening day of the Spring Hill Suites Invitational, hosted by Georgia Southern.
The Ladyjacks (2-0) held their two opponent's to just .147 hitting on the day, winning the first two matches of the year for just the first time since 2006.
SFA (2-0) will wrap up the tournament on Saturday when they finish off the round-robin event with matches against South Dakota State and Montana State.
SFA 3, Georgia Southern 2
The Ladyjacks had to play comeback in the first match of the season, but rallied from dropping the first set to take three of the final four for a 3-2 (11-25, 25-16, 25-21, 22-25, 15-11) victory over Georgia Southern.
"It was good to see us play well early after a long trip and get out to a good start against a very good team," SFA head coach Debbie Humphreys said. "I think this was big for our team, especially with the youth to gain a big boost of confidence."
The Eagles, who returned the majority of their roster after qualifying for the NCAA Tournament a year ago, did not commit a single error in the first set, hitting .500 for the frame before the Ladyjacks got rolling.
The Ladyjacks never trailed in the second set before rallying from a 19-15 deficit in the third frame to end on a 10-2 run and take a 2-1 lead into the break, closing it out on consecutive service aces from Madison Hanlan.
Georgia Southern came out after the half slightly shellshocked, falling behind 10-4 before putting together a rally of its own. The Eagles chipped away at the lead until finally taking a 20-19 advantage as part of a 7-0 spurt that propelled them to knotting the match, 2-2 and sending it to a deciding ffith set.
But in the race to 15 it was the Ladyjacks who got out of the blocks quicker, racing out to an 11-3 lead with kills from freshmen Katzy Randall and Paige Holland nearly putting the set out of reach; however, after a pair of GSU timeouts helped narrow the lead to just 11-7, the Ladyjacks finally summoned one final push, finally forcing an Eagle mistake on their fourth match-point try.
SFA hit at just a .138 clip for the match, but held Georgia Southern to a .113 attack percentage after the first set in buying itself enough time to put together a comeback. Sabrina Burns and Randall led SFA with eight kills apiece, while eight Ladyjacks in all finished with at least three kills; conversely, the Eagles got 38 of their 55 kills from just three of the 13 players who saw the court.
Hanlan led all players with a game-high 19 digs, but also had a career-high six service aces. Holland dished out 32 assists, and added seven digs and a pair of aces as part of 11 scoring serves for the Ladyjacks on the afternoon.
SFA has only served 11 or more aces once since 2008 - last year's contest vs North Texas in a match that also went five sets and included a 76-point third set.
SFA 3, Jacksonville 1
MC Bottles scored 16 kills in the nightcap of the opening day of the season and the Ladyjacks broke a halftime tie by taking both sets after the break for its second win of the day, 3-1 (25-20, 16-25, 25-23, 25-13) over Jacksonville.
Bottles misfired just once in 26 swings in the four-set match, hitting .577 and putting down nine of her 16 points in the final two sets. Sabrina Burns added eight kills with just one error for the second consecutive match, and a pair of blocks while Madison Hanlan finished with 17 digs.
The Dolphins, who had knocked off Montana State in five sets earlier in the afternoon, finished with more kills than the Ladyjacks, but also committed a dozen more attack errors and hit just .097 for the match.
SFA hit .200 for the match itself, and swung at the same clip in each of its three victorious sets, including .333 in the opening frame. Jacksonville only managed to hit above .162 in one of its three sets and was held to a -.111 mark in the closing fourth set after the Ladyjacks had withstood a furious third-set rally to take a 2-1 lead.
After the teams had split the first two sets, SFA opened up what seemed to be a commanding 21-14 lead before the Dolphins went on an 8-0 run to snag a 22-21 lead of its own; however, SFA managed to put down four of the match's next five points to take the set.
That seemed to take the air out of the Dolphins' sails as the Ladyjacks quickly opened up a 12-point lead in the final set and cruised to the finish line to move to 2-0 on the young season.
-SFA-
