Mississippi State
Arkansas State
Arkansas State Tops State In Bulldog Invitational Opener
September 11, 2009 | Volleyball
- Official Statistics
- Official Statistics (PDF)
STARKVILLE, Miss. --- Mistakes haunted Mississippi State's Volleyball Bulldogs in Friday night's Bulldog Invitational opener against
Arkansas State at the Newell-Grissom Building.
The Bulldogs (2-7) totaled more than 30 hitting, serving and blocking errors in dropping a 3-1 decision (14-25, 25-23, 23-25, 19-15) to the Red Wolves (7-1).
State continues play in the two-day, round-robin event Saturday, taking on Northwestern State (0-5) at 12:30 p.m. and first-time foe Eastern Michigan (1-8) in the 7 p.m. tourney finale.
"Arkansas State has a well-deserved reputation as a disciplined team," said first-year State volleyball coach Jenny Hazelwood. "They
do a lot of little things right. And you can't afford to make the mistakes that we made tonight and be successful against a team like
that. We had some players that performed very well for us tonight. Ioana (Demian) did a nice job and gave them a lot of looks at the net, and Ashley (Newsome) was strong again for us. Our serve-receive passing was awful tonight, and that kept us from getting much done."
The Red Wolves hit at a crisp .305 rate, with Cayla Fielder, Brittany Hoag and Charlyn Ursell combining for 48 of ASU's 63 kills. Fielder
registered 18 kills with but one attack error on an impressive .531 hitting night, and backed that with a match-high seven blocks. Hoag was also a factor at the service line, dealing five of ASU's nine aces.
The Bulldogs bounced back from a 25-14 drubbing in the opening set. Demian and Newsome tallied four kills each as State hit .435 and pulled even at the break with a 25-23 decision.
But the momentum slipped away midway in the third frame when ASU pulled away from a 10-10 deadlock to take a 19-13 advantage. Fielder delivered five kills and three blocks in the set. State stayed even with Arkansas State for much of the fourth set, taking an 18-17 lead on a kill by Caitlin Rance. But Brittany Hoag served up two aces to help ASU close the set with an 8-1 run in a match-clinching 25-19 decision.
Demian took match honors with a season-best 18 kills while Newsome, who entered the weekend as the SEC leader in total blocks, finished the match with a dozen kills and four blocks. Sophomore Caitlin Rance registered a career-best 11 kills and made just one hitting error.
Freshman setter Hillary Parker totaled a season-best 35 assists and backed that with 13 digs for her fourth double-double in five collegiate starts. Junior libero Kayla Woodard, the SEC digs leader, paced State with 18 digs.
In the opening match Friday afternoon, Eastern Michigan registered its first win of the campaign, blanking Northwestern State 3-0 (25-19, 25-17, 25-16). Eastern Michigan meets Arkansas State at 10 a.m.
Saturday.
