Sunday, December 6
Tallahassee, Fla.
2 p.m. CT
Jax State
0
at
3
Florida State
12/6/2009 4:49:26 PM | Volleyball
BOX SCORE
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – The Jacksonville State volleyball team's historic season came to an end on Sunday afternoon, when No. 3 National Seed Florida State handed the Gamecocks a 3-0 (25-18, 26-24, 25-22) defeat in the second round of the NCAA Volleyball Tournament.
The Ohio Valley Conference champion Gamecocks (27-8) were eliminated from the tournament by the Atlantic Coast Conference Seminoles (30-2) in a match that saw JSU fall in three close sets.
The Gamecocks wrapped up a storybook season that started with tournament titles at Wake Forest and Alabama and culminated with the program's fourth Ohio Valley Conference title in the past five years. JSU posted a 17-1 record in the OVC before sweeping through the conference tournament, despite being picked sixth in the OVC's preseason poll.
JSU hit .345 against the oversized Seminoles, the second-highest attack percentage of the year by the Gamecocks. Senior Brittney Whitten closed a decorated JSU career with a season-high .407 attack percentage that saw the Boonville, Ind., native put down a match-high 12 kills. Whitten closes her JSU career with 1,474 kills an 1,689 digs, both second on the school's career lists.
Sophomore Lauren Harkins led the Gamecocks' back row with 14 digs, adding to her single-season record for digs. The Louisville, Ky., native recorded double digits in all but two matches this season, running her total to 662 digs, 136 more than the previous record set in 2005 by Kisha West. She has totaled 1,144 digs in her two-year career, the fastest to 1,000 and the fifth-highest total in school history.
Junior Caitlin Vorbeck added 11 kills for the Gamecock offense, hitting .304 on 23 swings. Freshman Jen Meyer hit .368 for her 10 kills to round out a group of three Gamecocks in double digits.
Junior Brooke Schumacher handed out 41 assists in the loss, running her season total to 1,283, the sixth-highest total in school history. The Lake In The Hills, Ill., native has dished 3,467 assists in her career, placing her in fourth in the school record books in that category.
The Gamecocks' other senior, Paige Beasley recorded six digs in her JSU finale.
The Seminoles used a .408 attack percentage that was bolstered by Stephanie Neville's eight kills on 14 swings. Fatma Yildirim led FSU with 11 kills. Jenna Romanelli's 15 digs led the Florida State back row.
The Gamecocks hit .323 in the opening set, but watched the Seminoles knock down 18 kills on 32 attacks for a .469 attack percentage. Whitten had five kills on seven attacks for a .714 clip and Harkins picked up six digs, but Florida State controlled the set en route to a 25-18 win.
JSU led early in the second set, pulling ahead by as many as five at 10-5, but the Seminoles nipped at the lead until reclaiming the lead at 16-15. The Gamecocks scored the next three points then built a 23-21 advantage. FSU battled back to tie it at 23-23 and eventually claimed the set, 26-24, putting JSU's backs against the wall.
In the third set, FSU took an early 4-3 lead and never trailed again before sealing the match with the 25-22 win.
POSTGAME QUOTES
Florida State Head Coach Chris Poole
Opening Statement:
“It was a win. I knew that they were gonna be very scrappy, very aggressive. They were serving very tough, which caused them to miss a lot because they knew they had to serve tough in order to pull us out of our offense. We still offensively, I fell like we were able to hold up pretty well when we got the passing in and when we had control. It wasn't as clean as a game as what I would like for it to be, but at the same time, it's a win that we can kind of learn from, get better from and move on to the next round.”
On advancing to the Round of 16:
“Well certainly when we came in that was our intention to build a program that every year was a top 15 nationally recognized program and that's something we wanted to do right off. We've been lucky, blessed and had a lot of breaks to get where we are right now. Certainly we worked hard to try to get here but we know that we've got to continue to play well because when you're in this situation it's one and done. You have a bad match, you have some bad points, bad rallies and it can be over. Going up to Minnesota we know we're going to have to play well and we're going to have to be ready to battle a very, very good Kentucky team.”
On Jacksonville State
“Well one thing that I've found about this team this year is they don't really seem to panic most of the time. We really just try to preach to them to just take it one point at a time, don't look at the scoreboard, which is difficult to get a player not to do. We really don't want them focusing on the score, we really want them focusing on the rally because if you put together enough good rallies you can come back from anything and you can continue to play very well. To their (JSU) credit today, they didn't quit. They continued to play hard, they continued to serve hard. Their hitting was different angles then what we're used to hitting, they're not quite as tall as we are so a lot of time our blockers were literally going over where normally we would be used to the ball being and it was going lower to the net. It's just a different style and it's difficult to adjust to a tune like that. Again to their credit they found ways to be able to score themselves. But I'm certainly proud of the girls the way they picked it up in each of those games to where we were struggling at times.”
Senior Mira Djuric
On importance of showing that FSU deserves No. 3 seed:
“It feels very good. I feel like we deserved it because we worked so hard on it and we all wanted it really, really bad at the beginning of the season. So I feel like it's deserved with all of the injuries, all of the exams and all of the finals and everything that we had to go through this season and other stuff that we had going on as a team, it just feels really amazing to be able to push through. A lot of games we were down, games that we were thinking we were going to lose or teams that we played that were better then us that we thought were better then us is still an amazing feeling and we're really happy to be here.”
Jacksonville State Head Coach Rick Nold
Opening Statement:
“I'd like to congratulate Florida State on a great game. I thought we did everything we could. I thought we played the match we wanted to play. I am really proud of the effort our kids gave throughout the whole match. It didn't matter what they did. We played aggressive. We kept challenging them and they showed a lot of heart and so did our team. We got beat. I am very proud of this team.
On how close the second set was:
I think again anyone can be in that situation and it can be a little break here and there. I felt like they made some plays and we played hard all the way through it and didn't give anything up. They just played a little bit better than us. It's the smallest difference that goes to one team or the other. I don't think we were down after that game. That's just how volleyball is.
Freshman Alyx Schulte:
About the Florida State blockers:
“We were actually just trying to tool better. They have a really good team that can block so I was trying to get them to use their outside hand.”
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