WKU Climbs to 4-0 After Sweeping Austin Peay

Tuesday, August 30

Clarksville, Tenn.

6:00 PM

Western Kentucky University

4-0

Austin Peay

2-2

WKU

Austin Peay

8/30/2016 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball

Box Score

Aug. 30, 2016

Box Score

CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. - Another balanced attack from the Lady Topper Volleyball team led to WKU's fourth-straight win to open the 2016 season. The Lady Toppers headed to Clarksville, Tennessee, for a mid-week contest with Austin Peay and returned home with a 3-0 victory over the Lady Governors. WKU now owns an all-time record of 30-11 over Austin Peay.

"I think our team knows we have a chance to be good and I think our team also understands that we are vulnerable right now with the amount of unforced errors we are making," shared head coach Travis Hudson. "This is a pretty normal journey with only two weeks of practice before we start playing games. All of my teams are like this early on, there comes a point when we start tightening up a bit and when that time comes you probably don't want to play WKU."

In the opening set, 21 Lady Topper kills helped WKU to a 25-21 victory. Jessica Lucas registered 19 assists in the frame as six different Lady Toppers recorded two or more kills in the set. Sydney Engle turned in six kills and five digs in the set while Georgia O'Connell tallied eight digs. Austin Peay stuck around the entire set, but an Amara Listenbee solo block gave the Lady Toppers a 22-17 lead and helped shifted momentum to the visitors. The block would ultimately be one of three blocks for Listenbee on the night.

WKU jumped out to a quick 11-4 second-set lead and forced a Lady Governors' timeout. Austin Peay responded with a run to force a WKU stoppage. The Lady Toppers returned to the court and worked ahead to an 18-11 advantage before claiming the set in a demanding 25-14 fashion. Hudson's crew led the second set from start to finish.

The Lady Toppers struck first again in the third set, but Austin Peay responded and knotted the frame at 1-1. WKU fired back with a seven-point run and never looked back. Rachel Anderson's eighth of her 10 kills gave the Lady Toppers a 13-4 advantage in the deciding set. Maggie Singleton's first stat in a WKU uniform was a kill that put the Lady Toppers up 23-13. Three serves later, WKU put the final touches on the 25-14 third-set victory.

Cavanaugh led the Lady Toppers in the kills column with 14 tallies. Anderson and Engle each also hit double-digit kills with 10 apiece. Freshman Sophia Cerino added a new personal best eight kills. The Lady Topper squad finished with 54 kills in the three-set tilt on 107 attacks for a hitting percentage of .402.

"That's what makes us really good offensively, we've got a lot of ways we can turn depending on how people defend us," said Hudson. "We feel like everybody out there can finish plays for us and that's a pretty good luxury to have."

Austin Peay struggled to get its offense going with 16 attack errors against 32 kills. The WKU side limited the Lady Governors to a .148 hitting percentage. The book closed with eight blocks in the WKU column led by a four-block effort by Anderson.

O'Connell led the Lady Toppers in the dig category with her first 20-dig performance of the season and 12th of her career. Emma Kowalkowski added eight digs while Engle, Lucas and Kaelin Grimes all contributed seven apiece. Engle also registered a pair of aces in the second set.

"I love that both of the freshmen [Kowalkowski and Cerino] are fearless," Hudson said of the freshmen through four matches. "They've both been thrown into the fire and you know that mistakes are going to come and be part of what they do, but they just go out and have fun and play the game and I couldn't want more from them than what they're doing right now."

Hudson's crew is back in action this weekend at the Marcia E. Hamilton Classic hosted by Saint Louis University. WKU will face off against Cal Poly, Saint Louis and Arkansas State.

"As strange as it may sound, I'm most excited about getting exposed these upcoming weekends," added Hudson. "We're heading to tournaments where any win is a great win. I just want to get exposed so that we can get back in the gym and work on those things and get better."