Tulane University
Southern Miss
Defense and Blocking Leads Volleyball to Win
Oct 19, 2011 | Women's Volleyball
Oct. 19, 2011
Box Score (PDF) | Season Statistics (PDF)
NEW ORLEANS - Volleyball is a game that is hard to be successful at if you are not running in system. On Wednesday evening, the Tulane volleyball team kept Southern Miss off balance with tough serving and a solid block to claim the three set victory. The Olive and Blue won by scores of 25-23, 25-17, 25-23 in the Conference USA match at Fogelman Arena.
"We knew that if Southern Miss is passing consistently, they run a lot of combo plays," said Tulane head coach Sinisa Momic. "It's always something different, and we prepared for that. We also knew if we served well, they wouldn't be able to run those combo plays. We really went after them with our serving and did a good job with it. We didn't score too many aces but they had a lot of bad passes, which stopped them from running combos.
We did a good job most of the time pressing over on their outside hitters. We probably had our best blocking match of the year. On the other hand, we tried to run more cross plays, sending middles on the slide and had the right sides coming in. That really boosted up Milena and Izabela's attacking percentages. Our serving worked really well which helped us set up our block better. Our offense was pretty stable overall."
Grace Weaver opened the set with a kill and a service ace and the Green Wave would never relinquish that lead. Tulane pushed their lead to six points, 10-4, and led by five points on an Izabela Grot kill that made it 19-14. Southern Miss would respond with a 7-2 run to tie things at 21-21, but kills from Grot, Weaver and Milica Jovic helped the home team claim the opening set, 25-23.
The second set was played closer in the early going, with the two teams exchanging the lead six times, the last coming when a Weaver kill gave Tulane an 8-7 advantage. That lead reached five points when Jovic and Olivia Utt combined on a block to make it 13-8 and the Green Wave continued to extend their lead throughout the remainder of the set. A Grot kill pushed that lead to six points, 19-13, and a kill from Utt ended the match at 25-17.
It was down to the wire in the third set, which featured eight ties and six lead changes. Cori Martone gave TU an early four point lead, 7-3, with a kill in the early goings, but Southern Miss scored used a 9-3 run to grab a 12-10 advantage. The Green Wave responded to retake the lead at 18-15, just to see the Golden Eagles rally to take a 23-21 lead. Utt got the offense started with a kill, followed by a kill from Martone to tie things at 23. An attacking error gave Tulane a 24-23 lead and Martone finished the three-set sweep with a kill.
"We're trying to mix it for (Izabela and Milica) so that we are not to predictable," said Momic. "So far, it's working. If the passing continues to works, we'll try to make the most out of it. The important thing now is to continue and play close to our potential, which we did this game, and hopefully this will be that hump that we need to get over. Then we can work on maintaining our level of play for the entire match."
Grot and Jovic led all players with 11 kills apiece and were two of the five players that posted attacking percentages of better than .300. Martone posted nine kills and Weaver added seven kills, to go along with ten digs. Nikki Osuna posted 17 kills, while Martone and Mel Mandelbaum each boated eight digs. Mandelbaum had 22 assists in the match, as well.
Tulane will finish their three-match week with a road contest at UCF on Friday, October 21, before heading home to face UTEP on Sunday, October 23. The Friday match will begin at 6:00 and the Sunday match will start at 1:00 in Fogelman Arena.
Single game tickets for the remainder of the 2011 home slate are on sale now and can be purchased by contacting the Tulane Ticket Office at 504-861-WAVE or visiting the Tulane Team Shop inside the James Wilson, Jr. Center between 8:30 am and 5:00 pm, Monday through Friday.
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