Courtesy of LA Tech Athletic Communications
Louisiana Tech picked up a midweek victory in dominant fashion, sweeping Alcorn State 3-0 on Tuesday afternoon inside the Davey L. Whitney Complex.
LA Tech (2-2) controlled the match from the opening serve, hitting .372 as a team while holding Alcorn (0-2) to a -.012 clip offensively in route to a 3-0 sweep (25-10, 25-16, 25-16).
“This was exactly the type of performance we were looking for – played clean volleyball and implemented some stuff we worked on in practice yesterday,” said head coach Scott Mattera. “Fast growth is so fun to see! We were missing three starters today and did not bat an eye about it. Giulia moved over to the right side and absolutely killed it, and Jailen was as steady as you would expect from a senior. To only have seven attack errors in three games is pretty crazy but our setters mixed it up beautifully and our hitters made great choices.
The Bulldogs set the tone early, racing out to an 11-3 lead which included a 5-0 run that was capped off by back-to-back service aces by Grace Luevanos. They would cruise to an opening set win of 25-10 behind a blistering .400 hitting percentage (seven combined kills by Jailen Hurley and Carla Esquer) and a 90 percent sideout rate.
The team found themselves in a tighter battle early in the second set. The ‘Dogs held a 14-12 edge before gaining separation with a 5-0 run that included consecutive kills by Ryan Rusher. The freshman outside hitter continued to swing away, tallying five kills in what would be a 25-16 set win for LA Tech to take a 2-0 advantage.
The third set was all Bulldogs from the get-go. A string of five consecutive kills – one each by Luevanos, Anaya Hairston, and Megan Cooley and two by Giulia Bonifacio – provided LA Tech a 10-3 lead while forcing a timeout by the Lady Braves. The ‘Dogs would seal the sweep with a 25-16 win, finished off by a Zari Gillispie kill off an assist from Grace Krohn.
Bonifacio led the way offensively with a team-high 10 kills followed by Hurley with eight. Rusher, Gillispie, and Cooley each added five. Sydnee Carter and Krohn tallied 17 and 15 assists, respectively, while Riley Steubing anchored the squad defensively with 20 digs.
LA Tech returns to action this weekend when they travel to New Orleans to take part in the Green Wave Invitational. The Bulldogs will face Southern, host Tulane, and Lamar on Sept 5-7.
