Volleyball Clinches Comeback Win over Saint Louis to Move to 2-0 On the Day

Friday, September 10

Springfield, Mo.

3 p.m.

Tulane University

4-4,0-0Atlantic 10

Saint Louis

6-2,0-0AAC

Tulane

Saint Louis

Photo by: Parker Waters

Volleyball Clinches Comeback Win over Saint Louis to Move to 2-0 On the Day

Sep 10, 2021 | Women's Volleyball

Box Score

By: Samantha Larsen

SPRINGFIELD, MO. – The Tulane volleyball team fought past a scrappy Saint Louis University side Friday afternoon to finish the day with a pair of wins as the Green Wave won by consecutive scores of 25-23, 25-18, 25-18, after dropping the first set 17-25, to end day one at the Dr. Mary Jo Wynn Invitational.

Tulane (6-2) produced its second strong offensive showing of the day, hitting .223 as a team over the course of the four sets to power past the Billikens (4-4) and go into Saturday's finale with a chance to claim the tournament championship.

Three players made up 33 or Tulane's 48 team kills. Freshman Michelle Urquhart had her second collegiate double-double in this afternoon's contest. Urquhart hit .440 with 12 kills and 12 digs. No stranger to double-doubles is Lexie Douglas who had 11 kills and 5 digs of her own. The final heavy weight of today's offense was middle hitter Kayla Dinkins who hit .304 with 10 kill and claimed 13 points.

Taylor Henigsman served up a whopping 102 assists in the win for the Green Wave, finishing just short of earning a double-double with five digs.

Libero Jillian Dits finished the match with 10 digs for Tulane, followed by defensive specialist Sophia Ervanian who had six.

The Billikens proved to be up for the challenge, as they took the first set from the Wave with the largest deficit being nine points. The set finialed at 25-17 to put SLU up 1-0.

The second set was interesting in spurts, as Tulane was able to score first but went down 9-3 in the volleys that followed. Slowly, the Wave began to find pockets of offense to pull closer to Saint Louis throughout thanks to a 4-0 run from Anna Davis' serves. Tulane would eventually tie the match at 23 and put it away with two kills from Yvette Burcescu to secure a 25-23 win.

Set number three is when Tulane's offense came to life. The Wave jumped out to 7-2 lead to start the set. After a medley of aces and an error, the Billikens tied it up at 11 all. The score seesawed until a run of kills strung together by Urquhart, Douglas and Davis widened the gap to 20-16. Two attacking errors later, Dinkins and Douglas finished it off with three straight kills to take set three, 25-18.
Set four saw a copy-cat final of 25-18, but looked a little different from the start. Tulane dropped the first five points and had to fight out. Davis keyed a 7-0 run off of Davis' serves that took back the lead, 11-9. Tulane continued with seven kills and capitalized on a handful of Billiken errors to secure the match.

The Green Wave will be back in action later tomorrow afternoon, as it takes on tournament Missouri State at noon at the Hammons Student Center in Springfield, Mo.
The official mobile app for Tulane Athletics also is available for download, allowing fans the opportunity to connect with the Green Wave via Android or iOS mobile device.

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