Wake Forest Athletics
Volleyball Hosts Final Home Matches of the Year
11/19/2009 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
Nov. 19, 2009
WINSTON-SALEM, NC - The Wake Forest women's volleyball team will host its final two home matches of the year this weekend when it welcomes North Carolina and North Carolina State to town.
The Deacs will play host to UNC (15-13, 11-6 ACC) on Friday night at 7 pm and then will honor its three seniors - Sally Fischer, Abby Miller and Kate Rodriguez - on Saturday prior to a 6 pm match against NC State (7-25, 0-17 ACC).
Miller recently became just the seventh Demon Deacon to record 1,000 career digs as she is now fifth in school-history with 1,060. She is averaging a career-best 3.19 digs per set this season and has notched a career-high 15 service aces.
Fischer has been the Deacons go-to server the last couple of years, recording a total of 26 aces in just 64 matches. She is also averaging nearly one and a half digs per set over the past two seasons. Rodriguez has battled her way through injuries just about her entire career but has still managed to total 71 career kills and 112 digs. One of her top performances came last season at NC State when she had a career-best six kills, 11 digs and four service aces, including a key ace late in the match-winning fourth-set.
A return to Reynolds Gym could not have come soon enough as the Deacons (9-19, 7-10 ACC) dropped four-straight road contests the last two weekends. Wake is currently second in the ACC in digs per set at 15.75 and is ninth in kills (12.29), blocks (1.95) and assists (11.24).
Setter Kelsey Jones has been playing very well as of late, recoding a double-double in each of the last four matches, giving her 13 for the year, which is second-most in the conference. She is averaging 10.71 assists and 3.06 digs to go along with 13 kills over the last four contests.
Sophomore Kadija Fornah leads the team offensively with 278 kills and is averaging over a dig per set. Fellow sophomore Carlin Salmon is not far behind her with 242 kills and leads the team with 102 total blocks. Freshman middle hitter Andrea Beck has played extremely well in her first collegiate season, topping the squad with a .263 hitting percentage and is second with 87 blocks.
Defensively for Wake, junior libero Megan Thornberry has recovered from her early season finger injury and is third in the ACC with 4.66 digs per set. In the four-set match against Miami on Nov. 6, the St. Louis, Mo., native collected a career-best 32 digs.
The Deacons are looking to make it two-straight against the Tar Heels in Reynolds Gym as last year, Wake swept UNC in three sets. The Tar Heels won the first matchup this season in Chapel Hill, NC, on Oct. 18, by a 3-1 count.
UNC is led at the net by the duo of Ingrid Hanson-Tuntland and Heather Brooks. The pair are 1-2 in both kills and blocks as Hanson-Tuntland tops the team in kills with 283 and Brooks has stopped a total of 95 attacks. The combination of Cora Harms and Erica Behm at the setter position has led the Heels to 11.93 assists per set as well as 12.89 kills per set.
North Carolina comes into the weekend having won three of its last four matches with its lone setback coming at Maryland last Friday.
NC State comes to town in search of its first ACC victory. The Wolfpack is 0-17 in the conference and just 7-25 overall. Kerry DeMar and Kelly Wood are each averaging 1.93 kills per set on the year while Alex Smith has dished out 735 assists.
Defensively, Lindsay Benac is averaging 3.80 digs per set and Lisa Kretchman tops the squad with 75 total blocks.
The Deacons have beaten NC State 22 straight times with the last Wolfpack victory coming in Winston-Salem in 1997.
Both matches this weekend will feature live scoring via CSTV's GameTracker.
