Blocking Effort Leads Volleyball Past Baylor
November 22, 2014 09:37 PM | General
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MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Using a season-high 18 blocks, the West Virginia University volleyball team capped its home slate – and senior middle blocker Evyn McCoy’s career - with its second consecutive Big 12 sweep, taking a 3-0 victory from Baylor in set scores of 25-22, 25-21 and 26-24 on Saturday evening at the WVU Coliseum.
Following the match the Mountaineers (15-13, 5-9) paid tribute to McCoy, the squad’s lone graduating senior. Her teammates gave her quite the sendoff, winning their second game in a row following a five-game skid and downing Baylor (14-16, 4-11) on their home court for the first time in program history.
“I thought we did a good job as a team sticking with it and competing tonight,” said WVU coach Jill Kramer. “We were tied with Baylor going into this, and both of us were in a spot where it was time for us to go and make something happen. Before the match we talked about – we’ve talked about a lot this week – we’ve never beat Baylor at home. That is a first for us again. We have not, until tonight, won on Senior Night in the past four years. Those were big accomplishments for us.”
Hannah Shreve recorded ten of WVU’s 18 team blocks, setting a new career high with a block solo and nine block assists. McCoy added eight to tie her season high and Nikki Attea registered six as the Mountaineers limited Baylor to just a .058 attacking percentage. Lamprini Konstantinidou also tied her career best with five blocks, while Jordan Anderson contributed four.
Anderson was the offensive leader for the Mountaineers with a team-best 17 kills, hitting for a .308 clip. She also recorded the squad’s lone service ace of the match.
Attea had nine kills, hitting a team-best .500 as WVU hit for a .266 clip as a team, marking the Mountaineers’ third consecutive match hitting .200 or better. Four players hit .300 or higher, as Konstantinidou added a trio of kills while hitting .400. Hannah Sackett had four kills and Caleah Wells hit .400 with a pair as well.
Konstantinidou dished out 21 assists, while Brittany Sample and Anna Panagiotakopoulos each added five. Panagiotakopoulos had a team-best 10 digs, with McCoy tying her season-high of seven in that category as well. Melvina Brown had nine digs for the Mountaineers, and Anderson contributed seven as the team tallied 45 in the match.
West Virginia came out strong offensively, hitting .333 in the first set. Kills by Attea and Anderson helped the Mountaineers to a 5-2 lead in set one, before three in a row by the Bears tied the set 9-9. Wells found the court before Anderson added a pair of kills as the Mountaineers rattled off four straight points to lead the set 15-13 going into the media timeout. McCoy and Sackett each put one through the pins before a kill by Anderson put West Virginia in front 23-19, forcing Baylor into a timeout. A block from Shreve and Attea set up set-point for the Mountaineers, who claimed the 25-22 win on a Baylor attacking error to take a 1-0 lead in the match.
Anderson found the court seven times, hitting for a .333 clip to lead the Mountaineers in set two. After a close start, Baylor grabbed a 10-8 lead on a kill and stretched it to 14-11 on another. A block by Attea and Shreve, followed by a pair of Baylor attacking errors, tied the set at 14-14 before the Bears rolled off three straight points to tie the set 19-19. Shreve teamed with Anderson on a huge block before each put down a kill as West Virginia took a 23-20 lead, forcing Baylor to use a timeout. Shreve and Attea posted up for the block after the break before an Anderson kill capped the set with the Mountaineers taking the 25-21 win for a 2-0 lead.
Despite posting its lowest hitting percentage of the match at .188 in set three, West Virginia used 10 team blocks to hold the Bears to a .022 clip to take the final stanza. After Baylor took the first three points, the Mountaineers capitalized on three straight attacking errors by the Bears to take a 4-3 lead. Back-to-back blocks by McCoy and Konstantinidou capped a four-point run that put WVU ahead 13-8 in the set. Baylor came within one, using a kill to make it 17-16 but an Anderson kill and ace put the Mountaineers up by four, 20-16. Baylor rallied for four in a row to make it a tie set, 21-21 before a blocking error on the Mountaineers soon set up set-point for the Bears with a 24-23 lead. However, McCoy and Konstantinidou teamed for a block before Konstantinidou joined Shreve for a block as West Virginia came from behind to take the set, 26-24, and win the match 3-0.
WVU heads to Lawrence, Kansas, next week for a 6:30 p.m. ET tilt with Kansas on Wednesday.
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