Oct. 15, 2011
Box Score
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. ---- The Samford volleyball team made it nine straight home wins Saturday with a convincing 3-0 victory over The Citadel. This is their sixth SoCon win of the season and their fifth conference match hitting at least .300.
"Everyone is very happy with our weekend and our offense's level of execution," said Head Coach Derek Schroeder. "We have a big week to continue to improve in some areas before we hit the road again."
Samford (19-3, 6-2 SoCon) hit .381 as a team and limited The Citadel (7-13, 0-7 SoCon) to a .202 clip. Samford doubled The Citadel's total blocks, 6-3, and held the edge in digs 34-26. Hutchinson led the attack, hitting .667 behind 13 kills and one error on 18 attacks. This brings her season total to .448. Conference assists leader Casey Garvey paced the offense with 36 assists, averaging 12 per set. Katie Murphy played tall up front, pairing up for three blocks and tacking on a solo block as well.
Neither team gained control to begin the match, with each side trading points during the early going. Up 11-10, Samford slowly started to extend the gap, pulling ahead 17-14 before powering ahead with a 6-0 run led by Alicia Roth on the service rotation. That put the Bulldogs up 22-14, and though they allowed The Citadel to tack on four more points, defensive specialist Chelsi Carter showed her offensive prowess with a kill to seal the 25-18 set win.
Three runs in the second set allowed Samford to maintain steady control towards a 25-16 win. A Citadel service ace tied the set at 4-4 and gave Samford possession. Hutchinson followed with three consecutive service aces off three different Citadel defenders, helping Samford pull ahead 7-4. Later, up 10-7, libero Alexis Bauer drove home four consecutive successful serves, including two Citadel attack errors and kills by Hutchinson and Elizabeth Neisler, to double-up The Citadel, 14-7. The Citadel fought back, narrowing the gap to five points down 15-20. Samford made a final push with a 5-1 run, including three serves in a row by Bauer to secure the win.
Multiple runs were the story again in the third and final set. Tied at 3-3, Samford jumped ahead thanks to a 4-0 rally led by Hutchinson serving. The first point of the rally was another service ace for the junior, giving her a season-best four service aces in the match. Up 7-5, Samford again rallied on a 6-2 run to pull ahead 13-7 and added four in a row soon after to pull ahead even further, 17-9. Samford never looked back, with Taylor Palmer, Erika Devaughn and Taylor Chao all contributing points down the stretch, concluded with a 3-0 service run by Chao, to make the final 25-15.
Samford hits the road next weekend, playing a pair of matches. First, they face off against Davidson on Friday, Oct. 21 in a 6 p.m. CT match. The following day, the Bulldogs travel south to Statesboro, Ga., to compete against the Georgia Southern Eagles at 6 p.m.
