Box Score 1 |
Box Score 2 The Wolf Pack will open up the tournament semifinals with a match against Faulkner at 10 a.m.
With momentum from a victory against Martin Methodist the first day of the SSAC Volleyball Championship, the No. 7-seeded Loyola University New Orleans volleyball team picked up wins against William Carey and Middle Georgia on the second day of the tournament to go 3-0 in pool play.
Match One: Loyola 3, William Carey 1
Despite playing as the lower seeded team in both matches, the Wolf Pack played strong, especially on the defensive side in the match against No. 2-seeded William Carey. The Knights were held to just a .094 hitting percentage, while the Wolf Pack out-hit them with a .226 percentage. The Pack also recorded 20 team blocks for the match.
Loyola won the first set convincingly with a score of 25-17. But William Carey pulled out the 27-25 win in the closely contested second frame to tie the score at one point apiece.
But after the tight second set, the Wolf Pack was able to close out the match with big wins in the third (25-15) and fourth (25-19) sets.
Two-time First Team All-SSAC selection Tylar Beckham (SO/New Orleans, La.) led Loyola with 15 kills while also assisting on three blocks. Adelia Obioha (FR/New Orleans, La.) was second on the team with 11 kills, while Malea Howie (SO/Greenwood, Ind.) had 10. For the second straight match in the tournament, Maddie Huekels (JR/Dyer, Ind.) led the team in assists with 26, while Sunni Blanchard (SO/Pierre Part, La.) also finished with 20+ assists, logging 21 for the match.
On the defensive side. Obioha finished with a game-high 13 blocks to give her a double-double for the match. Allison Hartmann (JR/Slidell, La.) finished with nine blocks, good for second on the team in what was a strong defensive performance. Lindsay Ulfig (SR/Saline, Mich.) also assisted on six blocks. Four Loyola players logged double-digit digs, including Helene Masone (FR/Destin, Fla.) (20), Anna Katherine Brunini (JR/Madison, Miss.) (14), Blanchard (12), and Kaitlynn Watson (SO/South Lake Tahoe, Ca.) (10).
Match Two: Loyola 3, Middle Georgia 0
In the second match of the day, Loyola was able to complete a 3-0 sweep of No. 6-seeded Middle Georgia.
The first set was decently close before the Wolf Pack opened up an 11-0 run in the middle of the frame to go up 22-9 before taking the set 25-12.
The next two sets were closer, but each ended with a score of 25-19 in favor of Loyola.
Malea Howie led the Wolf Pack with 12 kills, with Tylar Beckham not far behind, logging 11 kills. Maddie Huekels led the team in assists once again after her second 26-assist performance of the day. Sunni Blanchard also contributed 14 assists.
Defensively, Helene Masone recorded a game-high 16 digs, with Anna Katherine Brunini having 10, and four players tied with seven digs each. There were only seven team blocks compared to the 20 from the previous match, but the Wolf Pack still limited Middle Georgia to a .143 hitting percentage, with Adelia Obioha assisting on four blocks, while Beatriz Agosto (SO/Miami, Fla.) and Allison Hartmann each had three solo blocks.
With the three wins in pool play, Loyola advances to the semifinals of the SSAC Volleyball Championship, where the Wolf Pack will open up semifinal play with a match against Faulkner at 10 a.m.
