Racers Rally to Close-Out Samford Invite

Saturday, August 26

Birmingham, Ala.

3:30 p.m.

Murray State

2-1

Samford

1-2

Murray State

Samford

8/26/2017 7:04:00 PM | Women's Volleyball

Box Score

Murray State volleyball rallied to win three sets in a row Saturday afternoon to come from behind and defeat Samford in four sets, 21-25, 25-20, 25-21 and 25-19 to close out the Samford Courtyard by Marriott Invitational. The Racers ended the invite winning 2-of-3 matches in Birmingham, Ala.

Rachel Giustino had a bigtime match in the win as she recorded a match-high 24 kills and recorded her third consecutive double-double as she also added 11 digs defensively to go along with a pair of service aces and two total blocks. Dacia Brown added nine kills in the win while Rachel Holthaus chipped in with five.

Ashley McBee led MSU (2-1) with 32 assists on the day while also adding eight digs and two blocking assists. In the backrow defensively, libero Becca Fernandez had a match-best 17 digs while Alex Kaufmann added 11.

Giustino and Fernandez were both named to the all-tournament for their efforts over the weekend.

The two teams were very even on paper as MSU hit .160 on the day and Samford posted a hitting percentage of .161. The Bulldogs also had a slight edge defensively at the net, out-blocking MSU 8-6. However, in the serving department, the Racers had a 6-5 edge in service aces while committing eight serving errors while Samford had 19 service errors as a team.

MSU returns to action next weekend as it travels to the Chattanooga Classic to begin the month of September. The Racers open the tournament Friday at 5 p.m. against Louisiana Monroe.