Marshall University Athletics
Marshall University
UCF
Volleyball Sweeps UCF, 3-0
10/2/2011 12:00:00 AM | Volleyball
Oct. 2, 2011
HUNTINGTON, W.VA. - The Marshall Volleyball program dominated their match against UCF on Sunday afternoon, sweeping the Knights, 3-0 (25-23, 25-18, 25-23). The win breaks a five game losing streak and gives the Herd their second conference win.
Marshall improves to 3-12 (2-3 C-USA) with the victory and UCF falls to 11-5 (3-2 C-USA) with the loss. The win is the second straight-set victory for the Herd in the 2011 season. Marshall extends their record against the Knights to 14-2 in the all-time series.
Cameron Yoho continued her powerful presence at the net, recording a team-high 15 kills. Combined with her 17 kill performance on Friday night, Yoho totaled 32 kills on the weekend, along with a 4.57 kills per set average.
Sacha Byous-McConnell followed with the second-most kills in the match with nine and Abby Tomas collected eight kills. Setter, Sammie Bane, finished with 31 assists and six digs.
Defensively, Ryanne Milligan and Dorothy Rahal came up big with some tremendous digs to limit the UCF attack. Milligan had a team-high 15 digs and Rahal finished with nine. Katy Schad also recorded nine digs in the match. Desirre Wilkerson led the team with five blocks (5 assists), giving her 12 total blocks (2 solo, 10 assists) on the weekend. Byous-McConnell also made her presence known at the net, finishing with four blocks (1 solo, 3 assists).
"It's a win, and we really needed that win," said Head Coach Mitch Jacobs after the win. "That is one heck of a team; Central Florida beat Southern California earlier in the year and that's a great testament to our league right now. We just have to stay focused. I thought we did good on Friday night, but there were still some mistakes when there didn't need to be. Cameron Yoho had a great weekend, with 17 kills on Friday and 15 kills tonight. She is doing a great job. Sacha (Byous-McConnell) and Desirre (Wilkerson) are really starting to do a great job in the middle."
The first set stayed close the entire way through. With the score tied 22-22, a kill from Tomas, followed by a kill from Wilkerson helped push the score to 24-22. Wilkerson stepped up big again in the next point and used assistance from Katie Potts to stuff a UCF attack and win the first set 25-22. Wilkerson had three blocks (3 assists) in the set and Yoho collected five kills.
Marshall continued to press in the second set, starting with a 5-0 run after the first serve. The Herd never relinquished the lead after the strong start and pushed past UCF 25-18 to win the set.
In the last set, Marshall controlled a 24-17 lead and looked to end the set, but UCF fought back from the deficit to make things interesting. The Knights won six straight points despite Marshall hanging on to match point each time. An attack error by the Knights ended the set 25-23, giving Marshall the 3-0 win.
Cameron Yoho commented on the team's turnaround performance after the match, saying "I think the most important thing we did was limit our unforced errors. Since we are such a young team, we are still maturing and learning to make the other team earn their points."
Abby Tomas went on to add, "We communicated much better than we have in the past few games and played with much more discipline."
The Herd host Rice next weekend in the Henderson Center. Marshall will play the Owls Saturday at 12:00 p.m. and Sunday at 12:00 p.m. Each match will be available to listen to online at www.marshall.edu/WMUL. LiveStats will also be provided by www.HerdZone.com.
