Murray State
Kent State
Racers Win 3-2 Over Kent State
9/8/2006 5:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
The Murray State women's volleyball team won its opening match at the KSU Invitational, beating host Kent State 3-2.
The Racers (3-1) won the first game 30-28 and fell in Game 2 30-25 before intermission. Kent State (2-5) was late getting back to the court for Game 3, and MSU was assessed two points as a penalty for the Golden Flashes' tardiness. That helped the Racers jump out to a 5-0 lead en route to a 20-12 score, winning Game 3 30-22. KSU took Game 4 30-22, forcing an emotional Game 5.
Kent State scored the first point of the final game, but Murray State ran off five points behind the serving of sophomore outside hitter Alyssa Groves. MSU jumped out to an 11-3 lead and appeared on its way to an easy fifth-game win, but Kent State made a charge to pull to within 12-9. Murray State exchanged the next few points to bring it to 14-10, and Ohio native Alison Mugler put the final volley away for the match-winner.
"We flip-flopped a couple of our players at the start because we wanted to get more offense out of Holly Jansen," said MSU head coach David Schwepker. "It was good, but we didn't spend a lot of time practicing it in the gym, so we were a little unorganized. We got the effect we wanted, though, and we did go out and win, so I'm happy with it. I think if we continue to play hard like this, they are going to get a lot more confidence.
"In Game 5, I told our players that this was a very excited team. They're going to try to get that big kill and be so pumped up. They want that big kill to get their team pumped up and just go crazy. That's what they were doing throughout the match. Our players played phenomenal defense in that fifth game. We stopped them from getting that big kill, and we just kept pushing them and pushing them and pushing them, and they started making errors, and that's where we got them. Defense was great; our blocking was great, and that brought us to get the win."
Murray State had 11 kills and only two errors in the fifth game, while the Golden Flashes had eight kills and four errors.
Both teams hit well throughout the match, as the Racers hit .296 and KSU hit .263.
Mugler led all hitters with 22 kills to go with an attack percentage of .362. Jansen added 19 kills, while junior Tara DeMage slammed 18 kills with an attack percentage of .333. Senior Katie Kemezys had 17 kills and a match-high attack percentage of .457, with only one error in 35 attacks.
Kemezys also had a team-high three blocks, while freshman Cassie Chesney handed out a match-high 73 assists. Sophomore Heather Norris led the MSU defense with 26 digs, while Groves had 21.
Kent State was paced by Anne Zakelj's 20 kills. Ashley Feutz added 15 kills, while Anja Knabe-Paulsen and Sarah Wilber each had 14.
Knabe-Paulsen served up a match-high three aces, while Wilber had a match-high four blocks. Katie Veatch handed out 52 assists, while Knabe-Paulsen, Feutz and Laura Jensen each had 15 digs.
Murray State will take on North Carolina State tomorrow (Saturday) at 11:30 a.m., then faces Chicago State at 4:30 p.m. North Carolina State beat Chicago State earlier today 3-1.
