Marshall University Athletics
Marshall University
East Carolina
Herd Volleyball Sails Past ECU Pirates
9/30/2005 12:00:00 AM | Volleyball
Sept. 30, 2005
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. - Marshall didn't waste much time in picking up its second Conference USA win as it rolled past East Carolina, 3-0 (30-20, 30-23, 30-26) Friday night in the Cam Henderson Center.
The Herd improves to 10-4 on the season overall and is now 2-0 in C-USA. The Pirates drop to 8-5 and 1-1 in the conference.
Marshall continues to bring the thunder in the Cam Henderson Center where the team is now 3-0 on its home floor this season and 27-4 in the last four years.
"It was a good night," Jacobs said. "I thought we played well. You can't complain when your middles hit .500 combined and your outsides get their kills when they were keying on shutting them down."
Nickie Sanlin was impressive for the Herd with 11 kills and a .500 hitting percentage. Sanlin also had five block assists and one solo on the night. Also for the Herd, Kelly-Anne Billingy had 13 kills as did Stephanie Cahill. For the match, Cahill also led the Herd with 10 digs for her team-high eighth double-double on the season.
For the match, Marshall outhit the Pirates .287 to .065 and outblocked ECU eight to four.
In game one, the Herd jumped out to a 10-5 lead and built it to 20-10. East Carolina would get no closer than seven the rest of the way in the first frame.
In game two, it looked as if the Pirates had some wind back in their sails as ECU jetted out to a 6-0 lead on the serving of Heidi Krug. Cahill then put down a kill to get the Herd on the board, but ECU added to the lead on the next point. Cahill would lead the Herd back into it with three more kills including one to make it 20-19 and the Herd put it on cruise control the rest of the way as it went on to win game two 30-23.
On the serving of Katie Stein, the Herd marched out to a 7-0 lead of its own in the start of game three. Stein had a pair of aces in the run and Cahill followed with two aces of her own. Marshall would build its lead to 12-3, but then ECU made a comeback. The Pirates would pull to within one, but three kills by Billingy and Sanlin would put the Herd back out in front. The Pirates would close to within two at 24-22, but the Herd didn't fold as it pulled through with the 30-26 win to sweep the match.
"I thought not panicking in game three was a good thing for our team," Jacobs said. "We slowed it down and I thought Katherine did a nice job down the stretch for us."
Stein finished with 35 assists on the night and Katherine Poss finished out game three with eight assists to set the Herd's offensive output for the night. Stein finished with three service aces and is now just three shy of breaking the Marshall all-time record.
Marshall will be back in action again on Sunday at East Carolina when the two do battle at 1 p.m. The Herd returns home next Friday night to play host to Southern Miss.
