JACKSON, Miss. – It wasn’t easy, but the Alabama State University Lady Hornets won a pair of tournament games to open play in the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) Volleyball Tournament.
ASU came from a 2-0 deficit in their opening game against a determined Southern team, to defeat the Jaguars 3-2 (22-25, 22-25, 25-15, 25-22, 15-5).
ASU then faced Arkansas-Pine Bluff in their quarterfinal game and after losing the first game, the Lady Hornets won the next three games for the 3-1 (23-25, 25-23, 25-22, 25-18) victory.
Tiara Kelley led the Lady Hornets with 28 kills during the two games while Myla Marshall and Rachel Smith added 23. Brooke Beasley led the offense with 64 assists on the day and Luiza Griz added 26 digs.
“That’s tournament time and everyone is here to win it,” Head Coach Penny Lucas-White said. “I’ve always said there is a lot of parity and we have an x on our back. Everyone wants to get after us. I think it gives them a lot of validity to get a win off of us. That’s how we feel when we win.”
“That does not mean we play not to lose, we have to play to win. I give Southern a hands up shout out, I give Pine Bluff the same thing.”
Smith led ASU in the comeback win over Arkansas-Pine Bluff picking up her fourth double-double of the season with 14 kills and 16 digs. Kelley had 12 kills in the win and Marshall had 10 while hitting a team-high .365 in the win.
Beasley picked up her team-leading sixth double-double in the game with 15 digs to go along with her 33 assists. It was the first time since the Sept. 20 game against Louisiana-Monroe the Lady Hornets had multiple double-double performers.
“Brooke has been our leader both on and off the court all year,” Lucas-White said. “Brooke has gotten it done. She’s the one that keeps the team calm, she’s the one I rely on when we need to change something; she is our glue that holds it all together.”
The first set of the game in ASU’s win over UAPB, there were 10 ties and just as many lead changes. It was a game that whichever team made the first run would be the winner and that was UAPB.
With the Lady Hornets leading 19-18, UAPB ran off a 5-0 run to turn the one point deficit into a 23-19. They eventually won the game 25-23.
In the second game ASU jumped out to a 7-2 lead and led 16-11 before the Lions made a run, eventually cutting the lead to one at 20-19 and 24-23 before ASU won the final point on a Smith kill.
With ASU leading the third game 5-4, UAPB went on a 6-1 run to push its lead out to 10-6. They eventually led 18-12 and 19-13 before the Lady Hornets started a thrilling comeback. ASU outscored UAPB 8-1 to take a 21-20 lead. The two teams battled through even scores at 21 and 22 before ASU scored the final three points for the 25-22 lead.
In the game-clinching fourth game the two teams battled through nine ties, before ASU went on a run with the score even at 13, which was the final time the two teams were even. ASU’s 10-3 run pushed the lead out to 23-16 and after UAPB scored two points the Lady Hornets put the game away for the final 25-18 score.
Kelley had 16 kills and Marshall 13 to lead the Lady Hornets to a 3-2 (22-25, 22-25, 25-15, 25-22, 15-5) win over Southern in ASU’s opening game of the day.
“Myla loves the heat of competition,” Lucas-White said. “The more the competition the more she thrives on it and I can honestly say she was so pumped up for it.”
ASU fell behind 2-0 after dropping the opening two sets of the game before placing a torrid comeback winning the final three games of the tournament.
ASU struggled with hitting errors over the course of the first game, but was able to find its rhythm in the final three games. ASU finished the game with eight total blocks and hit .205. Beasley had 31 assists and Ellyn Jones 17 to pace the ASU offense. Amber Bennett had a game-high five solo blocks and Griz collected 13 digs to lead the defense.
There were 10 ties and two lead changes in the first set of the game, with ASU only leading twice during the game at 15-14 and 20-19. After ASU went up the second time Southern was able to take advantage of several ASU errors to go on a 4-0 mini run and lead 23-20. After that the Jags were able to win 25-22.
ASU’s only hit .091 from the field and committed 15 errors in the set. Beasley, Marshall and Smith all had three kills in the set.
The second set saw the Lady Hornets pull out and lead by as much as 16-10, but again errors played a huge part in the game as ASU finished with 13. Southern slowly crept back into the game and was able to even the set at 21 and went on to pull out the 25-22 win, putting ASU down 2-0 heading into the break.
ASU came out of the break between the second and third games on fire and won the third game 25-15. The Lady Hornets jumped out to an 8-1 lead and never looked back. ASU only hit .156 in the set, but held their errors to only 10 and held Southern to a .046 hitting percentage.
The Lady Hornets were on the brink of dropping into the loser’s bracket trailing 16-11 midway through the fourth game. After an ASU timeout, ASU caught fire outscoring the Jags 8-2 to catch Southern at 19 and took their first lead of the set on the next point on a kill from Kelley and pushed the lead to 21-19 on a Southern attack error.
ASU finished the game scoring four of the final seven points to win the game 25-22 sending it to a fifth and deciding game.
There was no question who the better team was in the final set. With the score even at one after the first two points, ASU went on to outscore Southern (9-18) 7-2 to take an 8-3 lead into the switch of courts. From there ASU finished the game outscoring Southern 7-2 for the final 15-5 score.
It was ASU’s seventh five-set game of the season and it was their fourth win in those games. The two wins also pushed ASU’s record to 23-14 on the season. The 23 wins are the most wins by the volleyball program since the 1993 team also won 23 games.
“Tomorrow is a new day,” Lucas-White said. “We get some rest, we come back and we need to hit the road running. We need to take care of our business.”
ASU will play their first game tomorrow at 9 a.m. and will face host Jackson State. The game is an elimination game for JSU who had lost to UAPB earlier in the day, but defeated them 3-2 in an elimination game later in the day. An ASU win would put the Lady Hornets in tomorrow’s championship game at 3 p.m. A JSU win would see the two teams play immediately after the game in an elimination contest.
