Alabama
Missouri
Alabama Volleyball Hosts Missouri Sunday at Foster Auditorium
9/30/2017 11:25:00 AM | Volleyball
THIS WEEK: ALABAMA (12-4, 1-2 SEC) vs. MISSOURI (9-7, 2-1 SEC)
Sunday, Oct. 1 – 1 p.m. CT
Tuscaloosa, Ala. – Foster Auditorium
SCOUTING ALABAMA
- Sunday's match against Missouri is the Tide's second home conference match of the season. Under head coach Ed Allen, Alabama is 34-23 at home in conference play and has posted a winning record in each of the last four seasons. Alabama's best home record in conference play under Allen came in the 2014 season when the Tide went 8-1.
- Alabama is 12-4 overall this season and 1-2 in Southeastern Conference play. Last time out, the Tide earned its first SEC win with a five-set victory over Arkansas in Tuscaloosa.
- As a team, Alabama is ranked third in the SEC in digs (924, 15.66) and is fourth in opponent hitting percentage (.168), blocks (156, 2.64/set) and service aces (82, 1.39/set). Individually, junior Quincey Gary is third in the league in digs (281, 4.76/set), freshman Meghan Neelon is fifth in assists (598, 10.14/set) and senior Leah Lawrence is sixth in service aces (20, 0.34/set) and seventh in blocks (70, 1.19/set).
- Five Crimson Tide players had 10 or more kills in Wednesday's win over Arkansas. The last time Alabama had five players with double-digit kills was on Sept. 5, 2015 in a five-set loss to the College of Charleston. The last time it happened in conference play was on Oct. 23, 2005 in a five-set win over Ole Miss at home.
- Senior Leah Lawrence's 12 blocks vs. Arkansas was a career best and was also just one block shy of the school record of 13 set by Shelly Adamcik on Oct. 22, 1999 against Georgia. Sophomore Hayley McSparin was two away from Adamcik's record earlier this season when McSparin stuffed 11 blocks against Murray State on Sept. 15. Four of the Crimson Tide's top 10 single-match block totals have come in the last two years, with Lawrence accounting for two of the four.
- Sophomore Ginger Perinar has played well in conference action so far, posting 12 or more kills in all three SEC matches after only doing so once in the pre-conference portion of the season. She currently leads the team with 37 kills (3.08/set) in conference play, the third-highest total of any SEC player in league competition.
LAST TIME OUT: ALABAMA FIGHTS TO FIVE-SET VICTORY WEDNESDAY OVER ARKANSAS
Alabama volleyball put together a complete team effort in a hard-fought five set win over Arkansas Wednesday night at Foster Auditorium, winning the opening set of the night before the Razorbacks evened the match with an eight-point victory in set two. The Tide reached set point first in the third set but Arkansas ultimately won the back-and-forth battle past the 25-point mark to claim set three, 32-30, and take a 2-1 match lead. Alabama rallied to win set four, 25-22, before clinching the match with a decisive 15-5 victory in the fifth set.
The Tide had five players with double-digit kills and stuffed a season-high 18 blocks as a team, more than double the seven blocks from the Razorbacks. Senior Leah Lawrence had a career-best 12 blocks, just one shy of the Alabama single-match record, and added a team-leading 13 kills for her first double-double. Sophomore Mahalia Swink tied Lawrence for the team lead with 13 kills, a career best for the Bakersfield, Calif. native and freshman Meghan Neelon was one assist shy of tying her own career high, finishing the match with 53.
CAREER RECORD WATCH
- Senior Leah Lawrence is among the top 10 at Alabama in career blocks (5th - 396), block assists (4th - 325) and solo blocks (5th - 71). She is 42 blocks away from the school record of 438 held by Shelly Adamcik (1999-02). With four more blocks, Lawrence would become the fifth player in program history with 400 career blocks and the first since Crystal Hudson (2003-07) who finished with 408.
- Senior Natalie Murison is second in career digs at Alabama with 1,390. She is now 334 away from Amy Pauly's (2005-08) school-record total of 1,724. Murison has surpassed 400 digs in each of her three previous years, including a personal-best 469 as a sophomore in 2015. She has a career average of 3.15 digs per set, which is seventh all-time at Alabama, and her 441 sets played puts her eight sets away from cracking the top 10.
ALABAMA VOLLEYBALL SHINES ON SEC NETWORK
Since the launch of the SEC Network during the 2014 season, Alabama has been featured in 22 matches, winning 15 of them with an 11-3 mark at home and 4-4 mark on the road.
- Sept. 24, 2014 at Georgia: W, 3-1
- Oct. 12, 2014 vs. South Carolina: W, 3-1
- Oct. 26, 2014 vs. Arkansas: W, 3-1
- Nov. 9, 2014 at South Carolina: W, 3-2
- Nov. 16, 2014 vs. Georgia: W, 3-0
- Sept. 23, 2015 vs. Mississippi State: W, 3-1
- Oct. 11, 2015 vs. Missouri: W, 3-2
- Oct. 18, 2015 at LSU: W, 3-2
- Oct. 25, 2015 vs. Georgia: W, 3-0
- Oct. 28, 2015 at Missouri: L, 2-3
- Nov. 1, 2015 at Arkansas: W, 3-2
- Nov. 8, 2015 vs. South Carolina: W, 3-1
- Nov. 15, 2015 vs. Auburn: W, 3-0
- Nov. 25, 2015 vs. Ole Miss: L, 1-3
- Sept. 23, 2016 vs. Texas A&M: W, 3-2
- Sept. 25, 2016 vs. Florida: L, 0-3
- Oct. 2, 2016 at Mississippi State: L, 2-3
- Oct. 28, 2016 vs. Tennessee: L, 0-3
- Nov. 6, 2016 vs. Arkansas: W, 3-1
- Nov. 13, 2016 at Florida: L, 0-3
- Sept. 22, 2017 at Georgia: L, 0-3
- Sept. 27, 2017 vs. Arkansas: W, 3-2
FINDING A HOME AT FOSTER
Since moving back into a renovated Foster Auditorium in 2011, Ed Allen's first year as the Tide's head coach, Alabama has compiled a 70-27 (.722) on its home court, including a 7-0 record this season. Attendance has surged since its move back to Foster Auditorium as well, welcoming over 12,000 fans in five of Allen's six seasons after only surpassing 10,000 once prior to 2011.
UP NEXT
Alabama hits the road next weekend for a pair of SEC matches. The Tide opens on Friday, Oct. 6 at No. 10 Kentucky (11-2, 2-0 SEC) at 6 p.m. CT before facing Tennessee (8-3, 1-1 SEC) on Sunday, Oct. 8 at 12:30 p.m. CT.
