Oct. 23, 2010
Box Score
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. ---- The Samford University volleyball team kicked off its five-match homestand Saturday afternoon with an upset of Furman in a five-set thriller. The Bulldogs moved to 10-13 on the year and 4-5 in Southern Conference play while Furman falls to 12-9 overall and 6-3 in league play.
"There are a lot of things I can say, and they'd all be cliché but that is a team win," Samford head coach Derek Schroeder said. "That is the middles playing great, the outsides playing great and our serve-receive being great. Our first contact players - when our first nine points were terrible, they decided that they weren't going to let that happen today and solidified our first contact.
"You look at our hitting percentage, and that's the highest we've hit in weeks. And that's because we served the ball really well so we got defensive looks and we passed the ball really well so we were really good in serve-receive."
The Bulldogs fell in the first set, 30-28, before coming back to win set two, 25-20. They dropped the third set by two, 25-23, but came back with a dominating force to win set four, 25-19, and the fifth set, 15-12. Samford hit under .200 in the first two sets while holding Furman to a .000 hitting percentage in set two. The Bulldogs then hit .267 in set three and continued to improve to .357 in set four and .409 in set five while keeping the Paladins under .300 for the rest of the match. Samford ended the match with a total hitting percentage of .253 while Furman walked away with a .209 percentage.
"That's a big win for us because that team will probably beat a lot of North Division teams," Schroeder said. "So that's a big one for us. After this weekend, we may be back to within one shot for first place in the North. You never know. What it does more than anything is that it helps us with our confidence. To beat the team that went 16-0 in the conference last year with arguably the same lineup is huge for the confidence of this young team."
Alexis Bauer ran the back row, posting a season-high 25 digs, tallying nine digs in both the first set and the fourth set. Lyndsey Holt and Allie Bettinger followed with nine total digs each while Holt also added two kills, an assist and a block assist and Bettinger added 14 kills and a block assist. Casey Garvey posted career highs in assists with 53 and kills with three while also posting seven digs.
Elizabeth Neisler tallied a team-high 19 kills and added two block assists and a solo block while Lauren Hutchinson followed with 16 kills, two digs and three block assists. Hutchinson also led in hitting with a .414 percentage. Katie Murphy posted 11 kills and hit .348 while also adding two digs, three block assists and a solo block.
Hillary Fountain added five digs, two aces and an assist while Alicia Roth had an ace as well. Samantha Bland tallied seven digs, an assist and an ace while Shelby Brandon added three kills, an assist, two block assists and a career-high tying four digs.
Furman was led by Kelly Kirby and Natalie Braun who posted 17 and 16 kills respectively. Kirby also added 36 assists and 11 digs to tally a triple-double on the day while also grabbing two block assists. Braun added seven digs and an assist. Carolyn Nicoletti posted a double-double with 27 assists and 13 digs while Alexis Shaffer added 11 kills. Caroline Adams had five kills, five digs, four block assists and two block solos.
The Bulldogs are back in action Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m. when they host Wofford for the annual Dig Pink match.
Samford 3, Furman 2
Furman took charge in the first set, jumping out to a 5-0 lead with the help of four straight Samford errors. The Bulldogs finally got on the board after a Furman attack error and a kill by Bettinger but after two more points by the Paladins, Samford called a timeout. A ball-handling error by Furman out of the break got the Bulldogs within four points and after a kill by Kirby, Samford went on a 4-0 run to cut the lead to 8-7. Furman pulled back ahead by four but Samford went on a 7-2 run to take a 16-14 lead and force Furman to call a timeout.
The Paladins got within one after the break but Samford refused to give up the lead and fought to keep a 20-19 lead before calling another timeout. It was a back-and-forth game from that point on, with seven tied scores and three lead changes. However, Furman came out on top, 30-28.
Hutchinson grabbed the first point of the second set for the Bulldogs on a kill but returned the favor to the Paladins on the next point with an attack error. Samford and Furman fought through four tied scores before the Bulldogs finally took over the lead by three points on three straight Furman errors. With Samford leading 10-7, Furman called a timeout but Samford continued to press forward, going ahead by as much as six. Furman called another timeout, trailing 20-14, and the Paladins made a comeback on a 5-3 run to get within four points. However, Samford called a timeout and went on to win set two, 25-20, on back-to-back kills by Neisler.
Kirby posted the first point for the Paladins in the third set on a kill but Hutchinson and Brandon answered back with a block to even the score. A Paladin error gave Samford a 2-1 lead but Furman then went on a 5-0 run to take a 6-2 lead. Samford called a timeout and fought back to get within one point before eventually tying the score at 14 and 15. However, Furman forged ahead and maintained their lead. A kill by Murphy cut the Furman lead to 23-22, but after a timeout, the Paladins went on to win, 25-23.
Furman took a quick 4-0 lead in set four on three kills and a Samford error, but the Bulldogs called timeout and came back on a 9-5 run to tie the score at nine. Furman maintained its lead, but only by three points, and the Bulldogs charged back to tie the score at 17 on a kill by Murphy and force Furman to call a timeout. A kill gave Furman the lead again out of the break but another kill by Murphy tied the score at 18. Furman would only score one more point as Samford went on a 7-1 run to win set four, 25-19.
Samford gained the first point of the final set on an error by Furman but a kill by Kirby evened the score. The Bulldogs, however, then took a 7-3 lead on a 6-2 run sparked by a kill by Neisler and capped off by an error by Adams. Furman called a timeout and cut the lead to one point on a kill by Adams, an ace by Brooke Ellison and a Samford error. Bettinger answered back with a kill but Chandler Ambrester tied the score at eight with back-to-back kills. Neisler regained the lead for the Bulldogs with a kill but Braun answered back to tie the score again at nine. Neisler and Braun traded kills again before the Bulldogs took a 12-10 lead on kills by Neisler and Bettinger.
Furman called a timeout and answered back with a kill by Shaffer to get within one, but Neisler maintained the Samford lead with a kill and a Furman error gave Samford match point. A service error by Alicia Roth got the Paladins within two again, but after a Samford timeout, Bettinger downed a kill to win the final set for the Bulldogs, 15-12.
