Oct. 6, 2007
Box Score Photo Gallery
KENNESAW, Ga. -- Asjia Stokes had 12 kills and Ginny Frederick averaged over 10 assists per game, but the Kennesaw State volleyball team fell 3-0 (30-20, 30-20, 30-24) to Mercer in an Atlantic Sun Conference match Saturday afternoon at the KSU Convocation Center.
"We did not do a good job of competing today," said KSU head coach Valerie Jones. "As a team, we didn't come out with the proper mindset to play. It wasn't necessarily anything Mercer did which defeated us; the amount of errors we made shows we defeated ourselves."
Mercer (5-13, 3-1 A-Sun) took control of game one early, taking an early 10-5 lead. The Owls closed to within three at 13-10 after a Stokes kill. Mercer answered with a 4-0 spurt to take a 17-10 lead.
The Owls (3-18, 1-3 A-Sun) closed to within five on two occasions; first at 19-14 on a Frederick ace, then at 23-18 on a block by Stokes and Lindsey Plotner. That margin would be as close as the Owls would get for the remainder of the game, as trailing 27-20, the Bears scored the final three points to win 30-20.
In the second stanza, Mercer pounced on the Owls early with a 10-2 run. KSU came back with four straight points to cut the deficit in half. Jenny Black recorded a kill, Stokes tallied an ace, Mercer committed a ball handling error, and Plotner and Frederick blocked an attack to account for KSU's points.
With the score 10-6, Mercer scored 10 of the next 14 points to make the score 20-10. The Bears led 25-15, but let the Owls creep back in with three consecutive errors to make the score 25-18. But Mercer would score five of the next seven points to close the game, 30-20.
In the final game, the Owls took their first lead of the match when Fredrick and Sabrita Gulley blocked the first attack of the game by the Bears. The Owls would maintain a lead for the first few points, but Mercer would eventually overtake KSU.
The Owls would keep the final game close, as Mercer extended the lead to 18-11, but KSU would close the gap down to three at 23-20 off a Stokes kill. Mercer extended the lead back to six at 27-21, but Stokes and Black had back-to-back kills to make the score 27-23. The hole would be too great for the Owls to climb out of though, as Drennan Dexheimer had back-to-back kills to close out the match.
Stokes' 12 kills led the way for the Owls. The sopomore matched Black, Selina O'Leary, and Eman Burns for the team-lead in digs with seven. The Owls out-blocked the Bears 6.0-3.0, with Plotner climbing back to an average of a block per game on the season with four against the visitors. Plotner also captured nine kills, with Black chipping in seven
Mercer was led by Jen Darty's 14 kills. Claire Tucker led the Mercer back-row defense with 16 digs. The Bears had only four more kills than the Owls (39-35), but the Owls committed 11 more attack errors (22-11).
