Alabama
SMU
Volleyball Beats SMU 3-0 to Open Bama Bash
9/4/2009 12:00:00 AM | Volleyball
Sept. 4, 2009
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - The Alabama volleyball team earned a straight-set victory to open the Bama Bash, downing visiting SMU 3-0 (25-17, 25-20, 25-22) Friday night at the CAVE. With the victory the Crimson Tide earned its second straight victory and improved to 2-3 on the season.
"I thought it was a total team effort tonight," Alabama head coach Judy Green said. "I thought the passers played great. I thought the setters did a great job of running our offense and the hitters took care of the ball. When you side-out the way we did tonight, you are not going to lose very many matches."
Junior Alyssa Meuth and newcomer Kayla Fitterer led the Tide offensively. Meuth paced all hitters with 12 kills while Fitterer followed with nine. Alabama was efficient early and set the tone by hitting .459 (17-for-37) in the first set and finished the match with a .333 (44-for-105) percentage.
The Tide put together its best passing effort of the year as sophomore Stephanie Riley tallied 21 assists and junior Kayla Schmidt chipped in with 12. Sophomore Ashley Frazier led all players with 18 digs and nearly recorded a double-double with nine kills.
"We brought our primary passers in 30 minutes before every practice we had this week and we got them more reps, they obviously needed more reps to be comfortable," Green explained. "The other thing we worked on in practice was our side-out efficiency because we sided-out horribly in the first tournament and tonight you could tell we were a product of what we practiced. It was really good to see our hitters be very efficient with our offense tonight."
The two squads traded points to open the match until the Crimson Tide took a 12-10 lead and then went on a 9-2 run to jump out to a 21-12 lead and secure the first set 25-17.
In the second set it was more of the same with both teams knotted at 15 but Alabama then took control and played 10-5 the rest of the way to seize control of the match heading into the intermission.
In the third set Alabama raced out to a 9-2 lead but SMU rallied back to pull within two late in the set but the Tide closed out the match with a kill by Frazier.
The Mustangs were led offensively by Dana Powell and Kathryn Wilkerson. Powell tallied 11 kills and added six digs while Wilkerson recorded nine kills and seven digs. Kelli Becerra tallied 29 assists while Sidney Stewart paced SMU with 13 digs.
The Crimson Tide continues Bama Bash play with two matches on Saturday. UA will opens at noon against Jacksonville State and then closes out the tournament against McNeese State at 5 p.m.
