Volleyball Claims First C-USA Win Against Marshall

Friday, October 11

Murfreesboro, Tenn.

6:00 PM CT

Middle Tennessee

-711,13 CUSA

Marshall

-126,32 CUSA

Marshall

Middle Tenn.

10/11/2019 9:38:00 PM | Women's Volleyball

Box Score Box Score Highlight

By: @MTAthletics

MURFREESBORO, Tenn.—The Middle Tennessee volleyball team claimed its first Conference USA victory Friday evening, downing Marshall, a Top-100 RPI team, in five sets by scores of 26-24, 24-26, 25-20, 19-25, 15-9. The Blue Raiders improve to 7-11 overall and 1-3 in the conference, while the Herd falls to 12-6 on the season and 3-2 in the league.

Senior Dora Peonia came out swinging tonight, tallying a career-high 23 kills on the match, 11 of which came from set two alone. She also finished with 15 digs to record her ninth double-double on the season. Urte Neimantaite also finished with a season-high 19 kills. Taylor Hammill dished out 51 assists on the match and had a total 12 digs to record her eighth double-double. Hammill also recorded her 2,000^th career-assist in the first set. Senior Bri Tankesley also had a season-high 26 digs on the night.

Set-By-Set
The Blue Raiders scored the first point of the match with a Peonia kill. The two teams battled point-for-point at the start of set one, but MT went on a 3-0 run to take a 7-5 lead. The Blue Raiders kept the lead throughout the set, until Marshall tied it up at 24-24, but MT still came out on top after a kill from Neimantaite and a Marshall attacking error ended the set, 26-24.

In set two, the teams kept the score fairly close, with a total 10 tied scores on the set. The last tied score was 24-24, after a Marshall attacking error, but the Herd scored back-to-back points to claim the set, 26-24. Peonia tallied 11 kills in set two alone out of a total 23 kills on the match.

MT got to 3-0 lead in set three before the Herd scored and later tied it up at 4-4. The Blue Raiders took back a 7-6 lead after a Marshall attacking error, and then continued on a 4-0 run that included kills from Henley and Neimantaite. After four tied scores, MT took back the lead and eventually claimed set three, 25-20.

Marshall scored the first point of set four with a kill, but MT tied it up with a Peonia kill. The Blue Raiders then took a 10-6 lead, but the Herd came back and tied it up at 13-13, and continued to take back the lead. MT held on for as long as they could, but Marshall eventually took set four, 25-19.

In the final set of the match, the Blue Raiders jumped to a 4-1 lead after kills from Hammill and Neimantaite, and then went on a 4-0 run. MT never let up in the set, slamming the ball down every chance it got. Freshman Kayla Henley is one example of that, after recording her ninth kill on the night to claim the set, 15-9 and the match.

Team Notes

Dora Peonia has led the team attacks on six occasions and has recorded nine double-doubles on the season.
Urte Neimantaite tallied a career-high 19 kills on two occasions, against Tennessee Tech and Marshall. She has one double-double on the season and has led the team attacks on seven occasions.
Taylor Hammill recorded her 2,000^th career-assist against Marshall on October 11. She has also recorded eight double-doubles this season. Hammill is ranked 20^th in the nation for total assists and third in the conference for assists per set.
Hammill has a season-high 52 assists and 18 digs.
Bri Tankesley is 20 digs away from the 1,000 digs mark with 980 total. She also recorded a career-high four aces against Alabama A&M and a season-high 26 digs against Marshall. Tankesley co-leads the team in aces with a total 18 on the season.
Kayla Henley has recorded four double-doubles on the season. She also tallied a career-high 19 digs against Western Illinois.
Marley Banton has a total 18 aces on the year and an average 0.41 aces per set.
Mikaela Weidmann leads the team in blocks with 54.0.

Up Next
The Blue Raiders hit the road to Houston, Texas to face Rice at 1 p.m. Sunday. Live stats will be available and the match will stream live on C-USA TV.

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