Mississippi State
Georgia
Joyner's Double-Double Lifts State Past Georgia 3-1
October 12, 2007 | Volleyball
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STARKVILLE, Miss. - Senior Jamie Joyner piled up 16 kills and registered her third "double-double" of the season Friday night leading Mississippi State (7-11, 2-7 SEC) to a 3-1 SEC volleyball win over Georgia (13-6, 4-5 SEC) at the Newell-Grissom Building. The win was MSU's fifth in its last six meetings with Georgia and gave fourth-year MSU head coach Tina Seals a school-record 21st career coaching win in SEC play.
State struggled early in the match as Maria Taylor tallied six kills to lead UGA to an easy 30-21 win in the opening set. But the homestanding Bulldogs, after falling behind 6-2 in game two, surged back into contention with a 30-23 win in the second set and then nailed down the match with 30-22 and 30-27 wins.
"This was a total team win," said Seals. "We had so many players that stepped up for us --- Jamie had one of her strongest matches of the season and both Ioana Demian and Meaghan Schlueter came off the bench to get us going in that pivotal second game. Cristina Jucan has carried us in recent weeks, but Georgia did a great job defending against her. So we turned to Ioana and Meaghan, and they gave us the spark that we needed to get the win against a very well-drilled Georgia team."
Demian piled up 15 kills, her second-highest career total, and Schlueter had seven kills and a pair of assisted blocks.
Georgia hit at a .306 clip in winning the opening game. But State, after hitting a coolish .116 in the opening set, answered with a 15-kill, .375 hitting performance to pull even in game two with a 30-23 win. A service ace by Kayla Woodard and a pair of kills by Demian during a 5-0 MSU run gave State a 17-14 lead that would hold up the rest of the game.
A pair of UGA hitting errors gave MSU an 8-7 lead in game three and State maintained its lead for a 30-22 win in game three. Britta Buethe gave Georgia a 1-0 lead with a kill to open the fourth game. But it would be UGA's only lead off the set as MSU rode a seven-kill effort by Joyner to a match-deciding 30-27 win.
Joyner,who had but one hitting error on a season-best .536 hitting performance, added 10 digs for her third "double-double" of the campaign. Demian backed her 15 kills with 10 digs for her first career "double-double".
Lauren Kowal had eight kills, Schlueter seven, and Eva Kriegel, Cristina Jucan and Erin Seago five each. Kriegel, Kowal and Seago tallied three blocks each while Megan Lukasek paced MSU on defense with 16 digs. In team blocking MSU held an 8-6 edge.
Maria Taylor had 16 kills and 14 digs and Britta Buethe 14 kills to lead Georgia.
State returns to action at the Newell-Grissom Building Sunday, hosting Auburn in a 1:30 p.m. match. The Tigers (10-10, 2-7 SEC) dropped a 3-1 home match to instate rival Alabama Friday night.
