Bama Volleyball Earns Road Sweep at Mississippi State
10/23/2004 12:00:00 AM | Volleyball
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STARKVILLE, Miss. - The University of Alabama volleyball team opened its four-match road swing on Friday night with an impressive 3-0 sweep (30-23, 30-20, 30-20) over Mississippi State.
The win improved the Crimson Tide's record to 15-5 overall and 5-4 in the Southeastern Conference while MSU slipped to 12-11 and 3-6 in the league. Alabama has now won 11 straight against the Bulldogs and earned a victory in its last six visits to Starkville. UA also moves to 8-1 this year on Friday.
For the match, Alabama out-hit State .346 to .145 and posted a 52-34 edge in total kills. The Tide's defense finished with 59 digs on the night averaging a season-best 19.6 digs per game. UA also won the battle of the servers finishing with seven aces while limiting MSU, the SEC ace leader, to only three aces all coming in the first game.
"This is a great win for us to start the road swing," said UA head coach Judy Green. "The key for us tonight was our ability to handle their deep serves. Doing that well allowed us to run our offense very efficiently. Tonight we got an all-around consistent team effort."
Both squads used five-point runs early in the opening game to earn leads. The teams swapped turns in front as the aggressive serving by both sides seemed to stymie the flow of the offenses. Trailing by a point, 20-21, Alabama outscored the Bulldogs 10-2 to grab the 30-23 victory. After a slow start, UA's offense got on track hitting at a .333 pace in the frame.
Alabama rushed out to a quick 8-3 advantage that they eventually extended to 14-5. State rallied and closed the gap to 15-10 before UA answered back with a string of five consecutive points to take a double-digit lead. The Tide maintained that margin for the rest of the stanza earning a 30-20 win. Bama continued its dominance in game twos improving to 17-3 this season in the second frame.
UA kept the momentum to start game three pushing ahead 10-5. The Tide held on to a lead throughout the frame holding as large as a 10 point edge en route to the 30-20 victory.
Senior All-American candidate Erin Heffner continued her stellar play on Friday night finishing the 25 kills and 12 digs to post her 12th double-double of the year and her third in a row. Heffner moved past 1,900 kills for her career and also took over the No. 4 spot on the SEC's Career Attempt list. She also climbed to fifth on the Alabama career dig chart. Heffner also paced the Tide with five aces on the evening.
Junior Kelley Potter paced the UA defense tallying 15 digs followed by Jessica Yearout with 14. Yearout's total moved her into third place on the Tide's career dig list. True freshman Megan Hudson earned her first career start at defensive specialist.
Jami Hester posted 10 kills as the only Bulldog player in double digits in the match.
The Crimson Tide concludes its trip through the "Magnolia State" on Sunday when Alabama squares off against Ole Miss at 1:30 p.m. in Oxford, Miss.
