Hot Offense Leads WVU Past Akron

Saturday, September 17

Morgantown, W.Va.

12:30 p.m.

West Virginia University

7-5

Akron

4-7

Team	1	2	3	Final F
Akron	18	14	14	0
West Virginia	25	25	25	3

Slinde-Main-091716.jpg

September 17, 2016 02:58 PM | Volleyball

Box Score

Akron Zips

4-7

Final

West Virginia Mountaineers

7-5

Final Stats

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Hitting .323 in the match, the West Virginia University volleyball team posted its seventh win of the season with a 3-0 sweep of Akron on the second day of action at the WVU Invitational, held at the WVU Coliseum in Morgantown on Saturday. The Mountaineers (7-5) defeated the Zips (4-7) in set scores of 25-18, 25-14, 25-14.

In addition to their second-best attacking percentage of the season, the Mountaineers recorded a season-low 11 attacking errors with 42 kills. Four players hit .300 or better.

Payton Caffrey notched 17 kills and 10 digs in recording her seventh double-double of the season, hitting .406 in the process. Mia Swanegan netted seven kills with a .412 hitting percentage to go with four block assists. Hannah Shreve tallied six kills, while Katelyn Evans chipped in five.

Natania Levak posted a team-best six total blocks as the Mountaineers finished with eight team blocks on the day. Gianna Gotterba led the way with 14 digs as Haley Roe added seven.

Roe assisted on 21 kills, while Erin Slinde registered 111 assists. Slinde also notched a pair of kills, while Roe and Levak each had an ace for the Mountaineers.

“I thought we brought better energy,” said WVU coach Reed Sunahara. “Our execution was much better. It was fortunate that we came out ahead. I thought we handled the ball pretty well. We did some nice things out there.”

Behind seven kills from Caffrey, the Mountaineers rolled to a 25-18 win in the first set. WVU used five straight hitting errors by the Zips to take a 9-5 advantage before kills from Caffrey and Swanegan made it 18-11. Evans found the court for a 21-16 lead before a block by Levak and Swanegan made it 23-17. Back-to-back kills from Caffrey capped the set.

Hitting a blazing .500 as a team, West Virginia made it 2-0 with a 25-14 win in set two. Consecutive kills from Swanegan and an ace by Levak pushed the Mountaineers ahead 9-5. Roe scored an ace to add to the tally for a 14-8 advantage. Swanegan and Levak paired up on a block that put WVU on top 19-10 before a pair of Akron blocking errors made it 22-13 in favor of the Mountaineers. Evans came up big for the Mountaineers down the stretch, scoring two of the last three kills to take the set.

Rolling to five straight points to start the set with a 5-0, Levak added a kill and a block assist on another 5-0 run as the Mountaineers took a 10-2 advantage. Swanegan found the court three more times for a 16-9 lead before a solo block from Shreve put the Mountaineers up 18-10. Zuri Smith subbed in and immediately netted a pair of kills for WVU to push the advantage to double digits before Caffrey put one through the pins for a 25-14 win as the Mountaineers took the 3-0 sweep.

Kayla Gwozdz and Karley Kusan each had five kills as Akron hit .019 with a pair of team blocks.

West Virginia will close out the Capital Classic with a 7 p.m. match against Dartmouth.