Box Score | Box Score (PDF)
HATTIESBURG, Miss. - No. 25 WKU extended its win streak to eight with a four-set victory over Southern Miss on Thursday night behind 21 kills from Alyssa Cavanaugh and 15 by Rachel Anderson. A slow start would not deter the Lady Toppers as WKU dropped the opening set before coming back to win the next three over the Golden Eagles.
With the victory, WKU Volleyball improves to 17-2 on the season and remains a perfect 5-0 in Conference USA play. In his career, head coach Travis Hudson has now won 250 conference matches with tonight's victory. Southern Miss fell to 13-6 overall and 2-2 in league play after suffering its second loss at the Reed Green Coliseum this season.
"These are the kind of matches you have to win to win a championship," stated Hudson. "We weren't at our best tonight and Southern Miss had a lot to do with that. We continued to grind and found a way to win."
An ace by Sydney Engle got the Lady Toppers on the board first as the junior registered her Conference USA-leading 30th of the season. Through the set, neither side took more than a three-point lead over the other, but Southern Miss went on to become just the second team of 2016 to defeat WKU in the opening frame with the final 27-25 decision. The Lady Toppers were limited to a .182 hitting percentage in the set and were led by Taylor Dellinger, Anderson and Cavanaugh with three kills apiece.
WKU responded with a 28-26 second-set victory. The Lady Toppers owned a slim advantage for much of the set and forced a Southern Miss timeout following an Emma Kowalkowski ace to go up 21-19. Out of the break, Kowalkowski fired off another ace for a 22-19 lead. The Red and White went up 27-26 and forced another Golden Eagle timeout with Dellinger registering a kill on the next point to secure the WKU victory.
Led by eight Cavanaugh kills in the third set, WKU worked out to a lead that the hosts would never be able to recover from. The Lady Toppers owned as much as a seven-point lead in the frame before winning by a 25-20 margin. The Red and White forced a Southern Miss timeout up 19-17 and scored the next five points as well to take a 24-17 advantage in route to the third-set victory.
In its most productive set of the evening offensively, the Lady Toppers utilized 18 fourth-set kills to secure a 25-20 victory and clinch the match in a 3-1 fashion. WKU jumped out to a quick 8-3 lead over the Golden Eagles to force a timeout by the hosts before opening up a 15-9 advantage for the second Southern Miss stoppage of the frame. To that point, the Lady Toppers registered 10 kills on 13 swings with just one error for a .692 hitting clip. With just four total attack errors in the frame, WKU went on to hit .452 as a team. Cavanaugh's 21st kill of the evening provided the visitors with the match point followed by Anderson's 15th kill of the night and seventh of the set to close the book.
Cavanaugh led WKU in the kills column with 21 strikes in the outing. This marks her fifth 20-kill outing of the season. Anderson wasn't far behind with 15 kills for her sixth 15-kill outing in 2016. Dellinger finished with nine kills in the contest, while Engle posted eight. Overall, WKU hit .261 in the match with 56 kills.
Defensively, Jessica Lucas led four Lady Toppers into double-digit digs with 12. This marks Lucas' eighth double-double of the season. Engle, Georgia O'Connell and Emma Kowalkowski each added 11 digs.
Kowalkowski and O'Connell both also contributed a pair of service aces. Kaelin Grimes, Engle and Lucas accounted for the other three aces on the night for WKU.
Amara Listenbee led WKU with four blocks; a solo stop and three block assists. Cavanaugh registered the other two solo blocks for the Red and White, while Lucas (2), Anderson, Engle and Dellinger all added tallies in the block assist category.
WKU is back in action Tuesday evening in a non-conference match up against Lipscomb. Action will take place at the E.A. Diddle Arena as the team opens up a three-match home stretch. First serve is slated for 7 p.m. CT.
