JACKSONVILLE – The Jacksonville State volleyball team capped the opening day of the Mike Douglas State Farm Gamecock Classic with a 3-0 sweep (25-22, 25-22, 25-9) of the Colonels from Nicholls State to draw even for the day.
 
JSU (8-7) opened the day taking on a tough Kennesaw State team which reached the conference championship game of the Atlantic Sun tournament a season ago. The Owls began the match with a .400 hitting clip in the first frame to take a 25-18 set victory.
 
The Gamecocks fought back to tie the match heading into intermission after a 25-22 second set win, however, KSU proved too tough down the stretch with identical 25-21 victories over the final two sets. The Owls had 65 kills for the match led by four players with double-digit put-aways. JSU had just 36 kills, with 13 coming from junior Allyson Zuhlke who hit .333 against the visitors from Georgia.
 
In the finale of the first day of the tournament, JSU twice pulled away from tights sets, before rolling to a third set win to sweep Nicholls State.
 
The Colonels led 20-16 in the first, but gave up a service ace out of a JSU timeout to open the door for the Gamecocks. A kill from sophomore Mackenzie Rombach would pull JSU within one, while junior Charis Ludtke had a pair of kills to help tie the frame at 22. Ludtke had the final kill to seal a 25-22 win after JSU ended the first on a 9-2 run.
 
It wasn't a comeback, but JSU played point-for-point with Nicholls in the second before freshman Sadie Anderson's kill broke a 17-all deadlock to put the Gamecocks ahead for good. Freshman Kaylee Frear had one of her five kills for the night to for the final point to give Jax State a two sets to none advantage in the match.
 
Out of the break the Gamecocks only improved with a match-high .433 hitting mark en route to a 25-9 run-away victory.
 
Zuhlke had another double-digit kill performance, her 13th this season, while Ludtke led with 11. Perucki dished 17 assists against Nicholls to give her 40 on the day, while freshman Shayla Schmidt ended the night with 22 assists.
 
Hannah Kirk dug out 24 balls total for the day as the junior from Katy, Texas sits on the verge of a major milestone. Junior J'nae Fraser tallied 16 digs, including nine against a potent KSU offense. Up front, the top blocking team in the land was led by Rombach who finished with one solo and assisted on eight total blocks, and Frear, who notched four solo rejections between the two matches.  
 
The Gamecocks are back in action on Saturday as the Mike Douglas State Farm Gamecock Classic continues. JSU will meet Evansville at 11:30 a.m., before wrapping up the event with a 7 p.m. match against UL-Monroe. Admission is free to all matches and any Gamecock fans on campus for JSU's football game against Coastal Carolina are encouraged to bring their spirit over to The Pete for Saturday's finale.