STATESBORO, Ga. --- Samford's Ashley Adams and Kirstein Sosnowski
combined for 25 kills and just two errors to lead the Bulldogs to a 3-0
(25-22, 25-12, 25-11) victory over Georgia Southern Sunday at Hanner
Fieldhouse.
Samford wins their sixth straight match and remains perfect in the
Southern Conference at 2-0 and 13-2 overall. Georgia Southern loses for
the fourth time in their last five outings to fall to 7-10 and 1-2.
"I thought that we did a nice job in the first set," said GSU head coach
Chad Callihan. "We came out and played with good energy but it's just
difficult to sustain. Samford did a great job of applying pressure with
their serve and the more pressure they applied the more we began to lose
it. Hats off to them, they're playing great volleyball right now."
The Bulldogs led for most of the first set but the Eagles hung tough in
a three-point loss. But Samford started clicking after that and
outscored Georgia Southern 50-23 the rest of the way.
"It was all serving," said Callihan. "They had seven service aces in the
second set and they made a few errors, but they did a great job of when
they got up by five or six points, really applying pressure with their
serve and they just happened to keep hitting. Our passes broke down and
couldn't get anything consistent to execute good offense. Today we were
forced into mistakes by a good team."
Samford hit a combined .478 over the final two sets compared to -.047 to
GSU and tallied a .474 attack percentage for the match.
Adams recorded 11 kills and no errors (.611) while Sosnowski posted a
match-best 14 kills.
"We weren't able to apply enough pressure with our serving so they were
in good position all day to attack," said Callihan. "When you're passing
that well it makes it difficult on our middle blockers to be able to
close out on those pins particularly on the right side where they took a
lot of swings. Their hitters just did a great job of executing but I
really thought their passing and setting was key to their success."
Freshman Bethany Sanford (Avondale, Ariz.) led GSU with seven kills and
senior Mae Chabra (Mt. Pleasant, S.C.) added 18 assists.
The Eagles travel to Charleston, S.C. next weekend for matches at the
College of Charleston on Friday and The Citadel on Saturday.