JACKSONVILLE – The Jacksonville State volleyball team capped a perfect home weekend with a 3-0 sweep (26-24, 25-19, 25-22) of Austin Peay on Saturday to remain at the top of the Ohio Valley Conference standings.
JSU (14-8, 8-2 OVC) avenged its season-ending loss to APSU (7-17, 5-5 OVC) in last year's OVC Tournament. Overall, the win snapped a four-match losing skid to the Govs, and brought the all-time series record back even at 16-16.
A season-best 14 blocks by the Gamecock defense set the tone as the Govs were held to a .148 attack average for the day. Senior
Kaylee Frear controlled the net with a team-high seven rejections, while fellow senior
Shayla Schmidt matched her career-high with six stops. Behind them, nine Gamecocks registered digs as the back row evenly upped the attacks that made it through the block. Freshman libero
Erin Carmichael led with 10 digs, followed by
Lexie Libs with six, while Schmidt,
Maddie Cloutier and
Kaylie Milton each had four.
On the offensive side, Libs dished 34 of JSU's 39 assists in the straight-sets win. She found sophomore
Lena Kindermann for a team-high 11 kills, while Milton picked up nine and Schmidt added eight. Junior
Dani Steele served two of JSU's three aces in the match.
The first set featured six ties and three lead changes. After APSU pulled out from a 9-9 tie, JSU found itself down 19-15 late. Head coach
Todd Garvey would use a timeout trailing 23-20, where a kill by Milton after the break sparked a clutch 5-1 run to overcome the Govs late and take the set 25-23.
Leading by one at 8-7 early in the second, Jax State pieced together a 12-3 stretch to grab control, 20-10. APSU tried to rally late, but the Gamecocks held on for the 25-19 decision to take a 2-0 match lead at the break. In the third, it was a slow start for JSU who called timeout down 8-2. The Gamecocks began the comeback from there, pulling within one at 11-10, but the Govs stretched it back at to four at 18-14. A kill by Milton cut the margin to three, and a block from Schmidt and
Sadie Anderson pulled JSU back to within a point before an ace from Libs evened things up. Deadlocked at 22-22, Kindermann's kill started a 3-0 finish for the home squad to complete the sweep.
JSU takes its strong conference record on the road down the stretch of the season with four-consecutive road matches coming up. JSU will be at Tennessee Tech on Wednesday night, and then continue on to Cape Girardeau, Mo., to battle Southeast Missouri on Saturday.
