Tulane University
Southern Miss
Volleyball Drops Four-Setter at Southern Miss
Oct 20, 2010 | Women's Volleyball
Oct. 20, 2010
Box Score (PDF) | Season Statistics (PDF)
HATTIESBURG, Miss. - After dropping the first set, the Tulane volleyball team evened their match with Southern Miss on Wednesday evening at Reed Green Coliseum, before the Eagles grabbed the next two sets to defeat the Green Wave 3-1. Tulane dropped the match by scores of 17-25, 25-23, 19-25, 14-25.
"We were inconsistent in our hitting tonight and we couldn't put the ball away when it mattered," said Tulane head coach Sinisa Momic. "We ran a six-two system today with Elysa and Mel playing tonight. We had a decent amount of blocks, which was an area that we wanted to improve on, and the system was working well, but we couldn't finish our points. We played defense well, with Mel and Izabela playing well, we just need to improve on our offense as we head into the weekend."
Tulane held the early advantage in the opening set when they jumped out to a 6-2 lead, thanks to four attacking errors by the Eagles. The Green Wave would hold a slim edge until Southern Miss would knot things up at 11 points apiece. The home team would score the next four points to grab the lead and not look back on their way to a 25-17 first set win. Tulane had nine kills and four attacking errors in the opening set, but Southern Miss tallied 17 kills.
In the second set, the Olive and Blue again jumped on top first, leading 5-2 thanks to three blocks and eventually lead 15-10. Southern Miss tallied the next five points to draw even, but Tulane responded with four points of their own - including two kills from Lindsey Shepard. The match was tied again at 20 points, but the Green Wave eventually grabbed the lead back and evened the match at one set a piece with a 25-23 decision.
The third set was closely contested until Southern Miss strung together five of the final seven points to claim the 25-19 win and the Eagles opened up the fourth set by racing out to a 10-1 lead, before eventually taking the match with a 25-14 victory.
Mel Mandelbaum had a match-high 20 digs and chipped in 22 assists, while Elysa Jackson handed out 16 assists and added ten digs for her first career double-double. Cori Martone led all Green Wave players with ten kills, while Azarri Badawi and Milica Jovic each added seven kills apiece.
The Olive and Blue fall to 5-16 overall this season and are 2-7 in Conference USA play heading into a weekend of home matches. Tulane will open their weekend on Friday evening against East Carolina and play Marshall on Saturday, with both matches starting at 7:00.
--TulaneGreenWave.com--
