Next Up: Pair of Home Matches Await Volleyball
Oct 13, 2011 | Women's Volleyball
Oct. 13, 2011
Season Statistics | Conference USA Weekly Release
10/14/11 & 10/16/11
Tulane Green Wave hosts Marshall Thundering Herd/East Carolina Pirates
Start Times: 7:00 (Fri.) & 1:00 (Sun.)
Arena: Fogelman Arena (New Orleans)
Series Information: Tulane Leads Marshall, 5-2; Tulane Leads East Carolina, 11-0
GameTracker & Live Video Available for Both Matches
Looking at the Green Wave
The Green Wave picked up their first Conference USA win of the season last weekend in Dallas, defeating SMU on Saturday before falling to the Mustangs on Sunday. Tulane is now 6-11 overall on the season and are 1-5 in Conference play at the quarter pole. This weekend will bring volleyball action back to Fogelman Arena when the Olive and Blue hosts Marshall (Fri.) and East Carolina (Sun.).
Cori Martone paces the team on offense with 152 kills, but in Conference USA games it is Izabela Grot that holds a slim advantage in the kill department over Martone. Grot has totaled 60 kills in six C-USA matches, while Martone has accounted for 52 successful attacks. Grot ranks second on the team with 133 kills for the season and is one of five TU players to accumulate 100-plus kills so far in 2011.
Mel Mandelbaum posted a pair of double-doubles last weekend at SMU, averaging 24.5 assists and 11.5 digs in the team's two matches. On the year, Mandelbaum has a team-best 347 assists and ranks third on the team in digs with 131. The sophomore continues to move up the career assist charts, ranking tenth with 1,326. She is just 148 shy of moving into eighth place, currently held by Shelly Wolfe (1996-97), and just 170 away from Angie Smith (1989-92) in the seventh spot on the list.
Senior Nikki Osuna continues to lead the team defensively, collecting 297 digs as the team nears the midway points of the campaign. Osuna is just 103 shy of cracking the single season top-ten list at Tulane, closing in on Lindsey Norman, who totaled 400 digs during the 2003 schedule.
Tulane owns a 5-2 record all-time against Marshall, with all seven of those meetings coming as members of Conference USA. The Green Wave hold a 2-0 record at Fogelman Arena, are 2-1 at Marshall and they defeated Marshall in College Station, Texas during the 2005 season. The Olive and Blue have never dropped a match to East Carolina, entering the weekend a perfect 11-0 against the Pirates. That mark includes a 10-0 record in C-USA play since 2001.
Scouting the Pirates
East Carolina enters the weekend with a 2-14 overall record, sitting at 0-7 in Conference USA action, and are on an 11-match losing streak. It has been the offense that has led the Pirates down in the early part of the 2011 season, with the team hitting just .110 on the year with just over 500 kills and nearly 300 attacking errors. That hitting percentage goes even lower in conference play, with ECU posting 204 kills with 132 errors in 801 total attacks for a .090 clip.
Redshirt senior Britney Roper is the only ECU player to reach the 100-kill mark in 2011, sitting at 122, while sophomore Whitney Campbell leads the attack in C-USA play with 46 kills in seven matches. A pair of setters have been used this season by East Carolina, with rookie Zarah Cecich leading the team with 4.89 assists per-set and sophomore Kasey Kavanaugh averaging 4.60. Sophomore libero Shelby Beasley averages a team-best 3.88 digs per-set and Jakie Varnum is the big block in the middle with 1.02 blocks per-set this year.
Scouting the Thundering Herd
Marshall will oppose the host Green Wave in their opening match of the weekend and are 3-14 overall coming into the contest. The Thundering Herd are 2-5 in Conference USA play, defeating East Carolina in their conference opener and taking a straight sets decision from UCF two weekends ago. Marshall has a balanced attack at the top of their stat sheet, with two players accumulating 160-plus kills and another with 120, but the role players will need to provide more if they are to break their current losing slide, they have lost seven of their last eight matches.
An all-around leader for the Herd this season, senior Abby Yoho paces the squad in service aces (13) and total points (188), while ranking second on the team in kills (163) and fourth in blocks (20) and digs (111). Abby Tomas is leading the team with 166 kills, while Sacha Byous-McConnell is the only other Marshall players with over 100 kills, sitting at 123. Ryanne Milligan averages a team-best 3.29 digs per-set and Sammie Bane is the primary setter and enters with a 9.23 assists per-set average.
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