BOX SCORE
PENSACOLA, Fla. – Despite winning the battle in the box score and leading in every statistical category, the University of West Florida volleyball team dropped a nail-biter of a five-set contest against now back-to-back Gulf South Conference champions North Alabama.
"It's just great volleyball," stated head coach
Melissa Wolter. "I think when you have two teams that have met before and have the necessary components to put together great matches, that's exactly what you're going to see."
West Florida (25-9) started the match by dropping the first set for just the fourth time all year, falling behind with North Alabama's (29-5) offense converting at a .333 clip. The first set featured three ties in the early stages, but when UNA grabbed a 5-3 lead, the Lions never looked back and jumped ahead 1-0 with a 25-23 win.
UWF shifted the momentum in the second set by overmatching UNA with an offense posting a .417 attack percentage while the defense held UNA's formidable offense to a gloomy -.069 hitting percentage. UWF posted just two attack errors in the set, while UNA tallied 10 attack errors and just eight kills in the second set. West Florida used a 5-0 run in the beginning of the set to establish the tone, while a 4-0 run at the end of the set evened the match at 1-1 and solidified UWF's 25-11 second set victory.
The Argos kept it rolling in the third, posting another impressive offensive performance with a .400 hitting percentage. UWF used a 6-0 run to establish a 6-1 lead early in the set, and held a lead of at least two points for the remainder of the set. After two consecutive points cut UWF's late lead to 24-22,
Corisha Smith ended the set with her 15
th kill of the day.
With UWF leading 2-1, UNA flipped the script in the fourth by overpowering the Argonauts in a 25-13 fourth set. UNA posted its best single-set hitting percentage of the day at .400, while they held UWF to a match-worst .111. The Lions ended the set on a 6-0 run, including three kills, two attack errors and a service ace to force a deciding fifth set.
It is the second straight year the Argos and Lions needed five sets to determine a GSC champion, and things looked promising for the Argonauts early on with a 4-1 lead. UNA was able to claim its first lead of the set at 11-10 after battling back with four unanswered points. A kill from UWF's
Jordyn Poppen tied the match at 13-13, but back-to-back kills from UNA's Peyton Lang ended the fifth set at 15-13 and solidified UNA's 18
th championship in program history.
"The team that's down is going to fight with everything they have to force that deciding fifth set. The reality is, North Alabama is a great team. They have four seniors, we have six seniors. You saw things you should see from veteran players and they were not going to go away," explained Wolter.
West Florida topped North Alabama in hitting percentage at .268 to .247, in total kills at 61 to 59 and had less attack errors with 20 in comparison to UNA's 22. Offensively West Florida also tallied more service aces at 8-6 and more assists at 57-54. Defensively UWF out-blocked UNA 11-9 and had a slim 56-55 advantage in digs.
"I take nothing away from our team," said Wolter. "They were just relentless all year. They worked so hard. We had a couple of losses on the road, but our conference has gotten so much better and it's a challenge night in and night out. I'm really proud of our players bringing the tournament back to Pensacola."
Smith registered a match-high 19 kills in the setback, while freshman
Jordyn Poppen had one of her most notable performances of the year with recording a career-high 15 kills on 29 swings for a .379 attack percentage.
Monique StCyr recorded 52 assists in the match and set up UWF for a .268 hitting percentage.
Tori Martella led the team with 15 digs, and
Holly Mattmuller contributed 10 digs of her own against the Lions.
Kathryn Torre posted a match-high seven blocks in the setback.
UNA's Peyton Lang, the tournament's Most Outstanding Player, recorded 17 kills to go along with a .469 hitting percentage. UWF held GSC Player of the Year Natasha Fomina to just a .150 hitting percentage, but fell victim to 13 of Fomina's kills on the afternoon.
Smith and Martella were named to the 2016 GSC All-Tournament team. Martella collected 29 digs over eight sets in the tournament, while Smith tallied 25 kills in her eight sets of action.
The NCAA Division II South Region Tournament will take place from Dec. 1-3 at the No. 1 seed's facility. The selection show will be streamed on NCAA.com at 6:30 CT, as the Argos watch for a potential at-large bid. Should UWF hear its named called, it would be West Florida's 11
th consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance. The Argos were ranked No. 4 in the region in the NCAA's last regional rankings, and tournament will be made up of eight teams, including UNA, Sunshine State Conference champion Saint Leo, Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference champion Kentucky State and five at-large teams.
For information on all UWF athletics, visit GoArgos.com.
