Story by Magian Ackerman
Staff writer
Racer volleyball traveled to Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville on Saturday. Murray State dropped the first set to the Cougars, but was able to win three-straight sets to come up victorious 15-25, 25-18, 25-15, 25-20.
In the first set, the Racers took an early 2-0 jump, thanks to a hitting error by SIUE and a kill by Murray State senior middle blocker Dacia Brown, assisted by sophomore setter Ashley McBee.
The Cougars then went on a six-point run to take the lead. Contributing to the lead change were kills by SIUE sophomore middle blocker Hope Everett and sophomore outside hitter Rachel McDonald, along with a service ace by junior outside hitter Dylynn Otte to make the score 6-3.
Murray State trailed the Cougars for the remainder of the set despite successful offensive attempts by Murray State sophomore middle blockers Katriah Johnson and junior right side hitter Rachel Holthaus to get the Racers’ momentum in motion.
The set concluded with a kill executed by Everett, and SIUE took set one 25-15.
Set two started with multiple errors committed by both teams, but once Murray State found its groove, it was nothing but uphill for the Racers. Murray State junior outside hitter Rachel Giustino provided several kills to make the score 18-12.
The Racers held the lead for the rest of the set thanks to kills and a service ace by Giustino. Murray State then went on to win the set 25-18.
Locked in and ready to go, the Racers held a generous lead 16-10 in the third set with kills by Johnson, Brown and Giustino.
Murray State sophomore libero Becca Fernandez provided a service ace along with a kill by Holthaus to put the team one point away from claiming another set 24-15.
McBee set up Giustino for a kill in the final point of the set to wrap up the third set 25-15.
The Racers only allowed SIUE to score one of the first six points in the final set to go up 5-1. Contributing to the early lead was a kill by Johnson and multiple kills by Brown.
McClelland and Johnson wanted in on the action, so they made their offensive presence known by laying down multiple kills of their own to make the score 13-11.
SIUE, not wanting to give up, tied the game at 14 after Everett put away a kill of her own.
After a couple of errors made by the Cougars and a kill by Brown, the Racers’ winning streak remained intact as they won the fourth set 25-20.
Brown said the team took some time to hit their stride, but adjustments helped the Racers rally to beat the Cougars.
“It took us a while to get in a groove,” Brown said. We tend to make a lot of mistakes when we play as individuals rather than playing as a team. In the huddle we talked about our timidness attacking the net due to their big blockers. So we went into the second set calm and more aggressive than we did in the first and started playing more like ourselves after that. We knew our biggest problem, in the beginning, was us and not necessarily anything SIUE was doing. We think of that as a good thing, though, when we are causing our own errors because we can change and fix that.”
Murray State (19-9) (13-3) received the No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament, and will play UT Martin at 1:30 pm on Thursday, Nov. 15, in Clarksville, Tennessee.
