Oct. 28, 2008
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. ---- The Samford University volleyball team will host Chattanooga Wednesday evening as the Bulldogs get ready to wrap up home play for the season with the final midweek meeting. The match will be the third in a series of five homes matches left before Samford heads out on the road to finish out regular season play.
Samford (21-3, 10-1 SoCon) enters Wednesday's match after an intense weekend in which they won two very hard-fought matches against Elon and UNC Greensboro. The Bulldogs fell in the first set of the Elon match and put together a huge comeback in set two to go on to take the last three sets of the match to win, 3-1 (17-25, 25-23, 25-16, 25-14). UNC Greensboro threatened Samford early by winning the first set of that match as well, but Samford came back to win the second set and after falling in the third, the Bulldogs dominated the fourth and fifth sets to come out on top, 3-2 (22-25, 29-27, 16-25, 26-18, 15-11).
"Much of what we take from the UNC Greensboro match and grow from will occur at Tuesday's practice and Thursday and Friday this week as well," Samford head coach Derek Schroeder said. "After the match, I touched on how fun it is to play these type of important matches and how we will need to play more of them to obtain our year-end goals."
Wednesday Samford will face off with Chattanooga, a team it swept three weeks ago on the road. However, Chattanooga has made a run to the top of the division standings, winning five of six since the two teams last met on Oct. 8. UTC now sits in second right behind Samford who leads the North division. The Mocs made their move against UNC Greensboro on Saturday as they defeated the Spartans, 3-1 (27-25, 24-26, 25-23, 25-23).
Schroeder and his Bulldogs know Chattanooga will come into the Pete Hanna Center on Wednesday fighting to take down the top dog in the conference. The Bulldogs look to stand their ground, play on their own terms, and protect a nine-match win streak they have here at home.
"They are going to try and frustrate us with defense and we need to be mature, stay composed and play Samford volleyball," Schroeder said. "We have had a tendency to play very close to the style of the opponent we play against and I am going to challenge our girls to put our identity on the floor for Wednesday's match."
Leading that defense for Chattanooga is senior Lara Newberry. The libero leads the nation in digs per set (6.49) and owns two NCAA records - digs in a season (942) and digs in a career (2,977). Sophomore middle blocker Courtney Barnes leads the Mocs on the offensive side of the ball, knocking down 3.28 kills per set with a hitting percentage of .314. Cassie Conner also helps lead the UTC offense as setter, with 7.24 assists per set.
The Bulldogs continue to be lead offensively by senior Ashley Adams and sophomore Hillary Fountain. Adams continues to be ranked nationally and lead the Southern Conference in kills per set; this week, she is 23rd with 4.20. The setter Fountain continues to lead the conference in assists per set with 11.75 while ranking fourth in the country in the same category. Senior middle blocker Kirstein Sosnowski has also become a large contributor in the Bulldog offense as she leads her team and ranks second in the conference and 43rd in the nation in hitting with a .363 percentage.
Leading the Bulldog offense is senior libero Courtney Gay with 3.70 digs per set. Gay ranks eighth in the league in digs per set and has become Samford all-time digs leader by 65 digs as she has amassed 1,398 digs in her career. Lately, she has been getting lots of help for juniors Sarah Gardner (1.74 dps) and Samantha Bland (2.03 dps).
Samford ranks eighth in the nation in win-loss percentage (.875) and seventh in hitting percentage (.292), according to the NCAA. The Bulldogs also are 19th in kills per set (14.06) and 19th in aces per set (1.71) and assists per set (13.02).
Match play begins Wednesday night at 6 p.m. CT in the Pete Hanna Center. A full recap and results will be available on www.samfordsports.com upon the completion of the match. Admission is free for the match and remember to wear your Halloween costumes to participate in the Costume Contest that will be held between sets two and three. The winner will receive a Samford prize pack full of lots of free stuff!
