Sept. 13, 2013
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NOTRE DAME, Ind. - Auburn's volleyball team got one of its best offensive performances of the season and raced to a 3-0 victory (25-8, 27-25, 25-17) over Oakland on Friday afternoon in the Shamrock Invitational.
Auburn (8-1) doubled up the Grizzlies (4-5) in kills, 50-25, and hit .384 to Oakland's .082. Aggressive play in the service game in sets one and three allowed the Tigers to pull away early and get numerous easy, in-system kills.
"I thought it came down to serving," Auburn head coach Rick Nold said. "We did a really good job in the first game of taking them out of their offense; we got a really long run there with Chelsea (Wintzinger) serving. Game two, we missed quite a bit. But with those misses, we weren't as aggressive. But we got back to being more aggressive in game three and took advantage of getting them out of system and doing some things we wanted to do offensively. We had a chance to run more free-ball offense when we were more aggressive, and a lot of that comes back to the position you put the other team in."
Camila Jersonsky had a team-best 12 kills, and Katherine Culwell picked up her fifth double-double of the season with 11 kills and 13 digs. Kathia Rud contributed nine kills to the effort, and Kia Bright turned in a seven-kill performance along with two solo blocks.
Sarah Wroblicky led the defensive effort with 15 digs, and Chelsea Wintzinger contributed a match-high 27 assists along with two service aces.
The Tigers led every statistical category in the match, including digs (46-24), blocks (4-2) and service aces (4-1). Oakland was led by right-side hitter Jessica Dood, who had nine kills on 14 attacks.
Auburn went on an unprecedented run in the first set and sprinted to a 25-8 win, matching Auburn's largest margin of victory in a single set in the 25-point rally scoring era. It was also the first time since the sideout scoring era ended that the Tigers had two consecutive sets in which they held an opponent to single-digits; Auburn won the third set at Jacksonville State 25-9 on Monday night. Auburn had taken a 9-7 lead early in the opening set, and then scored the next 14 straight points on Wintzinger's serve to take a 23-7 lead. Oakland would stop the run with a kill, but the Tigers would get the next two to end the opening set on a 16-1 run, hitting .545 in the frame and holding Oakland to a minus-.143 mark.
The second set saw Oakland find more of a rhythm while Auburn was unable to take the Grizzlies out of system as often. As a result, what was a 17-11 Auburn lead quickly vanished in a set that eventually had 11 ties and three lead changes. Oakland had two set point chances at 24-23 and 25-24, but Auburn kills both times kept the game alive. An Oakland error gave Auburn its first set point chance at 26-25, and a kill from Courtney McDonald put the game away at 27-25.
Set three was much like the opening frame as Auburn pulled away early and finished off the sweep with a 25-17 win. The Tigers scored the first four points of the set and never trailed, leading by as many as eight points several times. Auburn got offense from all sides in the third as Jersonsky and Culwell had six kills apiece. In all, 20 of the Tigers' 25 points came from kills in the final set.
Auburn will play twice Saturday, taking on Loyola-Chicago at 9:30 a.m. before wrapping up the weekend against host Notre Dame at 6:30 p.m. Both matches can be heard online via Auburn All-Access at AuburnTigers.com, and fans can follow @AUVolleyball on Twitter for live updates throughout both matches.