Tigers open season with sweep of Tennessee Tech

AUBURN, Ala. – Securing the first victory in head coach Brent Crouch's tenure, Auburn volleyball kicked off the 2021 season with a 3-0 (25-17, 25-12, 25-19) sweep of Tennessee Tech in the opening match of the War Eagle Invitational Friday night at Auburn Arena.

"I thought it was a great first match for us," Crouch said. "We hadn't played in quite a while. To get the first win over with in the first match is good. We settled down as the match went on. I felt there was a lot of nervous energy, but overall, it was a really nice performance. We hit over .200 with Rebekah (Rath) leading, hitting .323 with 13 kills. She was a big get for us. She's going to be a great player for us. Liz (Reich) hit for a high efficiency on the right side. Val (Green) got some good swings on the left in that last set. That was a big deal. The biggest thing that I liked was that we played clean volleyball. There were not a lot of errors from us. That's one of the things we talked about often in practice, so it was cool to see them apply it and perform this way tonight."
 
The sweep was the first for the Tigers since knocking off Alabama on Nov. 30, 2019.
 
In her Auburn debut, junior Rebekah Rath led the Tigers with 13 kills. Rath added four blocks and a service ace to rack up 16.0 total points. Graduate student Liz Reich, another debuting Tiger, added nine kills while senior Tatum Shipes chipped in eight.
 
Sophomore Jackie Barrett recorded her first collegiate double-double, dishing out 25 assists and 12 digs. Barrett led the offense to a .292 hitting percentage, the highest for the Tigers since Crouch took over the program.

Defensively, Auburn limited Tennessee Tech to a .063 hitting percentage. It marked the first time the Tigers have held an opponent to a hitting percentage of .100 or lower since Sept. 21, 2019 versus IUPUI. Senior Bella Rosenthall had a solid performance in the back row with a team-leading 17 digs. At the net, the Tigers combined for nine total team blocks. Shipes paced the with six.
 
SET ONE
The Tigers took advantage of Tennessee Tech attacking errors and three early kills from Rath to pull ahead 6-1. The Golden Eagles prevented Auburn for putting together a lengthy run and crawled within one, 13-12. A block from Shipes and a Kate Curtis service ace gave Auburn a 15-12 advantage at the media timeout. It was all Shipes left in the set as the senior tallied three kills and a block late as the Tigers cruised to a 25-17 victory with help of an efficient .423 team hitting percentage.  
 
SET TWO
It was a back-and-forth set early on, before the Tigers used a 5-0 run to pull ahead 13-9. Strong play at the net in the second helped limit the Golden Eagles to a .000 hitting percentage. The offense flexed its muscle with eight kills late, four of which were big swings from Rath, to easily take the second set 25-12.
 
SET THREE
Set three was another back-and-forth affair early on with six ties before back-to-back blocks from the duo of Shipes and Rath put Auburn in front 13-8. The Golden Eagles battled back to close the gap, but great swings and a block from Val Green put Auburn in front 20-16. After traded points, Rath sealed the deal with an ace from the service line and hammered home the final point with kill.

UP NEXT
The Tigers close out the War Eagle Invitational against Jackson State on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. CT. Fans can stream the action on the SEC Network+.