Stephen F. Austin
McNeese
Resurgent McNeese Squad Challenges SFA in Shelton Gym Thursday Evening
10/18/2017 3:11:00 PM | Women's Volleyball
SFA sets sights on 20th win of 2017 and 21st season of 20 or more wins in program history
Match 25
Stephen F. Austin (19-5, 7-1 Southland) vs. McNeese (14-10, 5-4 Southland)
Thursday, Oct. 19 | 6:30 p.m. | Shelton Gym (600) | Nacogdoches, Texas
Live Stats | Watch (ESPN3/ESPN app) | SFA Match Notes
THE FIRST SERVE
• Continuing its busiest Southland Conference week of the year, the Stephen F. Austin volleyball team gets set for the middle match of a three-match home stand Thursday evening when a resurgent McNeese squad arrives in Shelton Gym for a 6:30 p.m. league bout.
• Winners of each of their last five matches, the Ladyjacks reside in second place in the Southland Conference standings heading into Thursday evening's matchup with the Cowgirls. SFA sits one-half game behind league-leading Sam Houston State who has not dropped a Southland match this season and holds a 7-0 record in league play.
• As it heads into Thursday evening's matchup with McNeese, SFA sits on the cusp of sewing up its 21st season of 20 or more wins. Should the Ladyjacks make it to the 20-win plateau with a victory against the Cowgirls, it would mark the fourth-straight season in which SFA accumulated 20 or more triumphs and tie the team's win total from each of the last two seasons.
• Coming at the Ladyjacks' 20-win season statistic from a different angle, the three opponents the Ladyjacks face this week - Southeastern Louisiana, McNeese and Nicholls - have 16 seasons of 20 or more wins combined compared to the 20 SFA has in the history of its program.
• Should SFA pick up win number 20 Thursday night, the Ladyjacks would be just the fourth NCAA Division I volleyball team this season to arrive at the 20-win mark. The only other programs who have 20 or more wins so far this season are North Dakota (21-4), VCU (21-2) and Western Kentucky (21-2).
LAST TIME OUT
• Peyton Redmond slammed home a career and match-high 12 kills and SFA hit a season-best .435 to dispatch visiting Southeastern Louisiana in straight sets Tuesday night inside Shelton Gym.
• The win was the 15th in a row for the Ladyjacks inside Shelton Gym and marked the second time in 2017 that SFA hit .400 or better in a match. Both times the Ladyjacks generated a team attack percentage at that rate, they were matched up against Southland Conference opposition.
• For the third-straight match, freshman Anyia Williams posted a hitting percentage above the .500 mark. The middle blocker out of Cedar Hill, Texas, registered nine kills on a career-best attack percentage of .692 and was one of two Ladyjacks who hit .600 or better on the night. Sophomore Danae Daron added eight kills of her own while
attacking at a clip of .636 in the process.
• Sophomore Ann Hollas produced her 10th double-double of 2017 by dishing out a match-high 30 assists and tying her career with with a match-best 15 digs. Hollas' 15 digs were almost half of Southeastern Louisiana's team total as the Lions finished with 31 scoops in the three-set affair.
• Three of SFA's service aces came off the hand of Corin Evans as she moved into the team lead with 27 total aces. Xariah Williams stepped behind the service line and delivered another pair of aces which were the first two of her collegiate career. They complimented a career-high eight kills for the sophomore.
• Redshirt freshman Julia Whitehead made her Shelton Gym debut in the third set and ran down a pair of digs - the first two of her collegiate career.
• SFA held a statistical edge over Southeastern Louisiana in every single category, including a 7-5 advantage in total blocks. Anyia Williams tied a career-high with five block assists to lead the Ladyjacks' front row defensive effort.
SCOUTING McNEESE | ROSTER | SCHEDULE | STATISTICS
• Record vs. McNeese | 40-12
• In Nacogdoches, Texas | 24-4
• In Lake Charles, La. | 12-8
• At neutral sites | 4-0
• Humphreys vs. McNeese | 37-10
• A little over halfway through its 16-match Southland Conference schedule, the Cowgirls have a legitimate chance to exceed their highest win total since 2010. McNeese sits a 14-10 and 5-4 in league play and their overall win total is already four more than the Cowgirls captured one season ago.
• The Cowgirls' match in Shelton Gym is the starting point of a three-match road trip on the heels of a five-match home stand in which McNeese went 3-2 and picked up league wins over Abilene Christian (3-1) and Central Arkansas (3-2). On the road in Southland Conference play, the Cowgirls have won two of their three matches - both by 3-1 scores at Incarnate Word and Abilene Christian - with the team's only league road loss coming by a 3-1 tally at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
• Headlining one of the most powerful offenses in the Southland Conference is do-it-all sophomore Shanna Spree. A threat from every rotation, Spree leads McNeese with a kills per set average of 2.57 and is one of two Cowgirls who have accumulated 200 or more terminations. In all, the Houston, Texas, product is tops on the squad in four major statistical categories including attack percentage (.328), service aces (31), service aces per set (0.35), blocks (84) and blocks per set (0.95).
• Keegan Nelms - another sophomore - has pounded down a team-best 232 kills (2.47 per set) for the Cowgirls and is second only to McGownd with a digs per set average of 2.93. In all, six different McNeese players have driven down 100 or more kills and as a team the Cowgirls' 1,129 kills are the most in the Southland Conference and the 19th-most in the nation.
• Although only a sophomore, McNeese's Angela McGownd is perhaps the top contender for the Southland Conference Libero of the Year award. Hailing from Loveland, Colo., McGownd leads the league in both total digs (483) and digs per set (5.14). On the national scene, her 483 total digs are the third-most among all NCAA Division I volleyball players and her digs per set average is the 34th-highest.
• Only Houston Baptist has a higher digs per set average than McNeese who has scooped up 16.29 digs per frame.
WHERE THERE'S A WILL(IAMS), THERE'S A WAY
• Before October rolled around, freshman Anyia Williams had taken part in just six of the Ladyjacks' matches. Now, she has played in all five of SFA's tilts this month and has turned into the most dangerous attacking threat in the Southland Conference.
• The Cedar Hill, Texas, product has hit .500 or higher in four of the five matches she has played in during the month of October and has put up three matches of 10 or more kills. Williams leads the team with 46 total kills in the month of October and is hitting .551 in Southland Conference matches - the highest figure in the 13-team league.
• Over her last five matches - all SFA wins - Williams leads the team with 2.71 kills per set and 1.06 blocks per set.
HIT ME WITH YOUR BEST SHOT
• No team in the Southland Conference boasts a better team attack percentage than SFA. The Ladyjacks lead the league and rank 30th nationally with a hitting percentage of .261. In Southland Conference matches, that figure spikes to .307, making SFA the only team in the league to by hitting at a rate of .300 or better in conference matches.
• Junior Makenzee Hanna sat out Tuesday night's match against Southeastern Louisiana, but still leads the conference and ranks 94th nationally with an attack percentage of .347.
• With her latest outing, sophomore Danae Daron upped her 2017 attack percentage to .327 - the fifth-highest in the Southland Conference. The middle blocker is one of seven Southland Conference players who are attacking at a clip of .300 or higher and SFA is one of two league teams that has two of those players at its disposal.
CAN YOU DIG IT?
• Senior Lexus Cain's stretch of 19-straight matches with 10 or more digs came to an end Tuesday night against Southeastern Louisiana. The Amarillo, Texas, product accumulated just seven, marking just the second time in 2017 she has been held below 10 digs in a match.
• This season, Cain's digs per set average of 4.30 ranks sixth in the Southland Conference and she is 16 digs away from moving up to eighth place on SFA's all-time career digs chart. The senior has 1,444 total scoops and if she makes it to 1,500 she would be only the seventh player in program history to record that many in a career.
COMING UP NEXT
• The Ladyjacks put the wraps on their three-match home stand at noon on Saturday inside Shelton Gym when Nicholls crosses the Louisiana-Texas state line to do battle.
-SFA-
