Rockin' the house
Special to the Gazette
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Emporia State came out on top in Friday night’s battle of two top 10 volleyball teams.
No. 8 ESU outlasted seventh-ranked Washburn in five sets — 25-23, 25-21, 18-25, 26-28, 15-13 — in front of a season high 2,165 fans at White Auditorium. Brittney Miller led ESU with a career high 20 kills on .341 hitting, and Arica Shepard added 17 kills and 21 digs for the Hornets. Mollie Lacy led Washburn with 18 kills.
“You know Washburn is a tough team,” said ESU head coach Bing Xu. “They are ranked above us in the national rankings. We came out very strong and charged in every single part of the game.”
The Hornets, now 21-2 on the season and 8-1 in the MIAA, had lost their previous two matches against top 10 teams this season, both on the road. But ESU has now won its last four matches against top-10 teams in White Auditorium dating back to the 2007 season.
“This was a huge game against our rival,” said Shepard, who had her 19th double-double of the season. “I think that helps so much and it seemed like they were more into it than last year.”
The Hornets had a 12-7 lead in the first set before the Lady Blues battled back to tie the score at 17-17. ESU went back in front 22-18 before WU went on a 5-1 run to forge a 23-23 tie. Miller and Katelyn Schmidtberger had back-to-back kills to close out the set for ESU.
ESU jumped out to a 13-3 lead in the second set only to see WU score 13 of the next 18 points to get within 18-16 before Miller broke the string with a kill. The Hornets had a 24-18 lead and the Lady Blues fought off three set points before Kate Hampson had a service error to end the set.
After the intermission, WU took a 12-4 lead in the third set and led 20-11 before ESU went on a 7-3 run. Ashley Shepard and Breanna Lewis had back-to-back kills for the Blues to close out the set.
Neither team took more than a four-point lead in the fourth set with ESU leading 17-13 at one point. After WU took a 24-23 lead, ESU fought off three set points before Jessica Fey had a kill and Arica Shepard had an attack error to send the match to a deciding fifth set.
“I don’t know if we got too comfortable, but I had a flashback to West Texas A&M,” Arica Shepard said. “We brought that up when we were talking, and we said we can’t do that again, not with all these people here.”
The Hornets jumped out 4-1 in the fifth set before the Blues went on a 7-4 run to tie the score at 8-8. The teams battled back and forth before the Hornets took a 14-13 lead on Brianne Boner’s kill and won the match when Fey’s attack sailed out of bounds.
“This was a big one to finish. We knew we needed to do it,” Miller said. “We need to learn to go into halftime and not let that happen to us.”
Arica Shepard moved into sixth place on the MIAA career kills list. Ting Liu tied a season-high with 54 assists for the Hornets.
Amy Byfield had 24 digs for her 17th straight double-figure dig match. Byfield moved past former Hornet Leah Griswold into second place at ESU and eighth in the MIAA in career digs.
Emporia State will be right back in action tonight when it takes on Fort Hays State. First serve is set for 7 p.m. at White Auditorium.
Fans can get free admission with a ticket stub from today’s Emporia State football game against Northwest Missouri.