MURFREESBORO, Tenn. - The Western Kentucky University volleyball team opened the Sun Belt Conference Tournament with a 3-0 (25-16, 26-24, 25-21) sweep of Louisiana -Lafayette on Thursday afternoon at Alumni Memorial Gym.
The Lady Toppers (26-7) advance to semifinals and will face the winner of No. 3 seed FIU and No. 6 seed Denver at 5 p.m. Friday.
"We will be glad to match up with either (FIU or Denver)," WKU coach Travis Hudson said. "Every time you step forward in a conference tournament, the challenge gets greater and we respect a lot the two teams that are competing right now and we'll find out who is next and we'll get to work on it."
WKU finished the match with a .398 team hitting percentage, which ties a Sun Belt Conference tournament record for hitting percentage in a three-game match, set by the Lady Toppers against the University of Central Florida in November 1991.
"All we are trying to do at this point is live another day," Hudson said. "We are excited to get that win. Lafayette played extremely well and I am not at all surprised with how they played and I knew the challenge would be great and it was good to come out with a win."
Louisiana-Lafayette (17-16) was limited to a .242 hitting percentage and committed 16 hitting errors.
Sophomore Jordyn Skinner led the WKU offense with a season-high 16 kills and a .500 hitting percentage. Senior Emily Teegarden finished the match with 11 kills. Redshirt freshman Paige Wessel added eight kills and a .462 hitting percentage while junior Tiffany Elmore tallied seven kills and a .500 hitting mark.
"For the last month, I think (Jordyn) has been the best player on our team," Hudson said. "Jordyn is a kid that rides the wave of confidence a lot and I really believe being named first-team all-conference last night, solidified in her mind that she can really do it at this level and I think she came out and played with a lot of confidence today and played really well."
Defensively, Skinner also paced the team with eight digs. Freshman Melanie Stutsman added seven kills and Sarah Rogers, Kelly Potts and Ashley Potts each recorded five digs. Elmore finished the match with six blocks, one of which was solo. Wessel tallied three blocks.
The Lady Toppers took an early 9-4 lead in the first set before the Ragin' Cajuns rallied to close the gap to 9-8. With the score 11-9, WKU went on a 7-0 run to take an 18-9 lead. The Lady Toppers tallied five of the last seven points to close out the 25-16 win.
The second set was a battle back and forth between both teams with 14 ties and three lead changes. Down 24-23, a kill by Elmore tied the match at 24 all. WKU took the game 26-24 on back-to-back attack errors by Louisiana-Lafayette.
The two teams kept things close in the third game tying the score seven times in the early going. At 9-9, the Lady Toppers used a 7-2 run to build a 16-11 advantage. The Lady Toppers posted a hitting percentage of .640 in the game with 19 kills on 25 attempts and took the game 25-21.
For complete results and a recap of Friday's match, please visit WKUSports.com. Live stats and video streaming are available at SunBeltSports.org.
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