Wake Forest Athletics
Wake Forest University
Jacksonville State
Volleyball Falls To Jacksonville State 3-1
8/29/2009 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
Aug. 29, 2009
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - Backed by solid defense, Jacksonville State held Wake Forest in check and went on to claim a 3-1 victory on day two of the 2009 Deacon Invitational in Reynolds Gym.
The Gamecocks improve to 2-0 on the early season with a 25-18, 25-19, 24-26, 25-16 victory. Wake has now dropped its first two matches on the year.
Caitlin Vorbeck led four Jacksonville State players in double-figure kills with 16. Kara Slater added 14 kills and three blocks, Alyx Schulte chipped in with 12 kills and 15 digs and Brittany Whitten had 11 kills and 10 digs.
Brooke Schumacher dished out a match-high 53 assists and collected 16 digs while libero Lauren Harkins led the team with a total of 18 digs.
The Gamecocks finished with five players in double-digit digs and recorded a total of 77 on the afternoon. Wake managed just 55 digs and was held to a .133 hitting percentage.
The Deacs were led by freshman Andrea Beck with eight kills and two blocks. Sophomore Carlin Salmon recorded three kills and a career-best seven total blocks. She also added a pair of service aces.
Freshman Megan Carnell played in her first collegiate match on Saturday and after she got rid of the early jitters, the Suawanee, Ga., native finished with solid performance. She had 17 assists, seven kills, five digs and four blocks.
Sophomore Cambrey Oehler finished the match with seven kills and seven digs while senior Abby Miller led the team with 14 digs. Freshman Heather Kraft, who made her second-straight start in place of the injured Megan Thornberry, finished with a total of 10 digs. Thornberry broke her finger in warm-ups prior to Friday night's match.
In set one, JSU ran out to an early 7-2 lead thanks to four-straight kills, including two from Vorbeck. Wake cut the lead to three at 14-11 after back-to-back kills from Carnell and thanks to three errors from the Gamecocks, the Deacs would crawl to within one at 16-15 before a JSU timeout.
Wake evened the score on yet another error from Jacksonville State coming out of the stoppage but JSU then ran off the next four points to take a commanding 20-16 lead.
A kill from Fornah cut the margin to three but the Gamecocks would score five of the next six points to close out the set 25-18. Slater had four kills in the set and Schumacher dished out all 15 of JSU's assists in the opening frame.
In the second, the Gamecocks found themselves with a 7-4 lead and eventually stretched it to 10-5 before a kill from Fornah and three-straight JSU errors narrowed the margin to just 10-9, forcing a JSU timeout.
Out of the timeout, JSU went on a 7-3 run and opened up a 17-12 lead and the Deacs would get no closer the rest of the set, eventually falling 25-19. Wake had just six kills in the set and hit .083. Vorbeck had six kills herself to lead the Gamecocks and Schumaker dished out another 15 assists.
The third set was the best set of the match. Neither team held more than a two-point advantage until late in the set and there were a total of 15 ties in the frame compared to just two through the first two sets.
For the second-straight match, the Deacs got a boost from Oehler in the third set. She finished with four kills and a .444 hitting percentage.
The teams played pretty even early on in the set and with Wake up 13-11, JSU got kills from Vorbeck and Schulte followed by a block from the same duo to take a 14-13 advantage.
After a Wake timeout, the Deacs scored five of the next eight points, capped by two big kills from Oehler to regain an 18-17 lead. The teams then traded 3-0 runs and timeouts to put the count at 21-20 Wake Forest.
A block from Salmon and Carnell gave the Deacs a two-point lead and a kill by Carnell ran the lead to 23-20 but JSU answered back with a 4-1 run to tie the score at 24-24. The Deacs closed out the set with a kill from Salmon and a hitting error by the Gamecocks for a 26-24 victory.
Carnell had eight assists, five digs and three blocks in the set while Andrea Beck chipped in with three kills on six attempts.
Whatever momentum Wake gained from the third set was quickly squashed by the Gamecocks as they jumped out to an early 9-3 lead in the fourth. The Deacs would get as close as four on two occasions but JSU closed the door with a 7-2 run at the end of the set to close out the match 25-16.
As a team, JSU hit .224 with 66 kills and 63 assists. Wake had just 31 assists but finished with nine blocks compared to seven for the Jacksonville State.
In the first match of the day, Furman rebounded from a loss Friday night to post a three-set sweep of Charlotte 25-23, 25-17, 25-20.
Wake will look to salvage a win on the weekend as it wraps-up the invitational tonight against Furman at 7 pm.
.png&width=84&height=84&quality=100&type=webp)
