Volleyball Opens Season With 3-0 Sweep of Appalachian State

Friday, August 24

Harrisonburg, Va.

7:00 PM

James Madison University

1-0

Appalachian State

0-1

Appalachian State

James Madison

Volleyball Opens Season With 3-0 Sweep of Appalachian State

8/25/2012 12:48:00 AM | Volleyball

Box Score

HARRISONBURG, Va., Aug. 24, 2012 – Four different players collected double digit kills and the team hit .289 overall as the James Madison volleyball team opened up its season with a 3-0 sweep over Appalachian State at Sinclair Gymnasium/Godwin Hall on Friday night.

JMU won by set scores of 25-8, 25-18, 25-21 to improve to 1-0 on the season. The Dukes are now 2-1 in season openers under Head Coach Lauren Steinbrecher. Appalachian State dropped to 0-1 on the year.

“I'm really proud of the girls,” Steinbrecher said. “I thought we came out and played as a team. Our ball control and our defense is much improved from last year and that's exciting to see. We had a really diversified offense where four of our attackers all got the same number of attempts and kills which makes us tough to defend.”

The offense was paced by redshirt senior outside hitter Natalie Abel (Washington, Pa./Trinity) with a team-best 13 kills on .250 hitting. She added 12 digs, a service ace, an assist and a block on the night. Sophomore middle blocker Lizzy Briones (Siloam Springs, Ark./Siloam Springs) finished with 12 kills on .348 hitting while senior outside hitter Danielle Erb (Tampa, Fla./Plant) atted 11 kills on .391 hitting. Freshman outside hitter Meghan Niski (St. Charles, Ill./St. Charles East) collected a double-double in her first career match, finishing with 10 kills and a team-high 14 digs.

Defensively, junior libero Katie Daorai (Tampa, Fla./Plant) finished with 12 digs, five assists and three aces while redshirt sophomore setter Kristi Richardson (Glen Allen, Va./Hermitage) had a team-best four blocks. She added four kills, 14 assists and two digs. Senior setter Megan Wiechmann (Sunland, Calif./Village Christian) paced the offense with 24 assists, adding six digs, two kills and a block.

Wiechmann's 24 assists pushed her over 2,000 for her career, making her the seventh player in school history to reach that mark.

The Mountaineers were paced by outside hitter Lindsey Sauls with a team-best six kills. Libero Courtney Rhein led all players with 15 digs while outside hitter Emily Corrigan and setter Paige Brown contributed 10 digs each. Middle Blocker Jessica Eley chipped in with four blocks.

JMU outhit ASU .289 to .029 whil holding a 62 to 48 advantage in digs. Appalachian State compiled eight blocks to just six for Madison.