ABILENE, Texas – McMurry University Volleyball used a balance offensive attack and a strong defensive effort to sweep Schreiner University 25-10, 25-15, 15-17, in their home opener Wednesday night.
"We were excited to finally have a home game," Head Coach Cammie Petree said. "We've been on the road, we're a little bit road weary. It was fun to play in front of our home crowd."
Four different War Hawks (9-0) recorded six or more kills, led by senior middle blocker Madison Reed's eight. Reed hit .538 on the evening. Junior middle blocker Kianni Mitchell had seven kills, while junior middle blocker Justice McGowan and junior right side hitter Jordyn Burnell each had six.
Defensively, the War Hawks held the Mountaineers (1-8) to a -.012 hitting percentage compared to hitting .316 themselves. Senior libero Odalis Rodriguez led the way with nine digs. McMurry had seven total blocks at the net, as Mitchell had four assisted blocks and a solo block.
The War Hawks dominated the first set, and never looked back. They forced two early Mountaineer timeouts as they built their lead. In the set, the War Hawks hit .500 to the Mountaineers -.036. Schreiner kept with the War Hawks in the second set, trailing just 10-9. The War Hawks scored the next three points to force a Schreiner timeout, and pulled away from there.
Set three was tied at 12, but two aces by Rodriguez and kill by Reed allowed the War Hawks to take a 17-12 advantage. McMurry maintained the five-point lead for the next ten points before scoring the final three points to take the match. Rodriguez ended the match with four aces, of which the War Hawks had eight.
"Hopefully we did some good things out here, and we have a few things we need to work on," Petree said. "I think we had a little bit of a letdown, but we still got the win, and that was a good thing for our first home match.
Junior setter Emarie James had 18 assists and six digs to go along with three kills on three attempts. Sophomore setter Lauryn Davis dished out 10 assists with two digs, and was also a perfect two-for-two on here attack attempts.
McMurry begins American Southwest Conference play Friday when it travels to Sul Ross State to take on the Lobos at 7 p.m.
