Stephen F. Austin
Lamar
SFA Sweeps Lamar, Improves to 13-0 in SLC
11/4/2014 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
BEAUMONT, Texas – The Stephen F. Austin women’s volleyball team set the tone early and held off a late Lamar push to earn a straight set victory (25-13, 25-23, 26-24) in McDonald Gym on Tuesday night. The win is the 13th consecutive victory for the Ladyjacks – the seventh longest active streak in NCAA Division I.
“It was a situation where we weren’t too sharp tonight in anything we were doing,” said head coach Debbie Humphreys. “Everything was kind of difficult. You always wonder about that coming off our big win against Central Arkansas on Saturday and the quick turnaround on Tuesday. It was the first day trip for us this year as well. There were a lot of unknowns and new territory for us tonight. The one thing I will say is those final two sets were super close, super tight and we executed at key times and that was important for us. The timely execution was great to see especially because we were a little flat overall this evening.”
Senior Jill Ivy was relentless offensively, posting 13 kills in 25 attempts. She committed just one error for an efficient .480 attack percentage. The outside hitter notched six winners in the third and deciding set alone to help SFA prevail in a 26-24 decision.
Just as in the previous match against Lamar in Shelton Gym on Oct. 25, both middle blockers for SFA had big nights as well. Junior Jacque Allen and sophomore Justice Walker each tallied eight kills on a combined .517 hitting. Over two sweeps against Lamar this season, the duo recorded 36 kills while hitting over .500.
Senior Paige Holland came one dig short of a double-double, dishing out 36 assists and providing nine digs for her team.
Defensively, the Ladyjacks (20-7, 13-0 SLC) were led by an 18-dig night from junior libero OJ Olson. Freshman Lexus Cain added nine digs for SFA.
The Ladyjacks opened the match by hitting a sizzling .476 behind four kills each from Ivy and junior Tori Bates. SFA ended the set on a 13-4 run to win in convincing fashion, 25-13.
The two teams battled back and forth the whole second period. With the score knotted at 21-21, Walker had a monster block and later finished a set point chance for the Ladyjacks with a line drive kill.
SFA needed an extra point in the third set but got the job done, 26-24. Freshman Abby McIntyre landed a kill to put the Ladyjacks up 25-24 and junior Madison Martin served up an ace on match point to give SFA its 11th sweep in conference play.
The Ladyjacks will continue their current road trip on Friday as they head to Natchitoches, La. for a matchup with Northwestern State. SFA got the better of the Lady Demons the first time the two programs met this year back on Oct. 21 by way of a straight-set sweep. An SFA win would clinch at least a share of the 2014 SLC regular season title.
“The focus for us right now has to be to get better and continue playing good, solid volleyball because there is a conference tournament coming up,” Humphreys said. “We have three weeks of volleyball left and hopefully more. We want to be playing into December as well. Our team knows what’s at stake and there is motivation and determination to get it done, but our focus has to be executing at a high level and certainly at a higher level than we showed tonight.”
-SFA-
