MONTGOMERY—The Southwestern Athletic Conference's (SWAC) top team, Jackson State, defeated Alabama State 3-0 in volleyball action to stay atop the conference standings.
Rachel Smith did all she could with 13 kills and a .469 hitting performance, but it was not nearly enough as ASU only hit .034 for the game. Smith had exactly half of ASU's kills on the evening.
Christine Edwards came into tonight's action leading the SWAC in kills and kills per set, and she did nothing to hurt those stats as she finished with 17 kills in 32 attempts with only two errors. Her .469 hitting percentage helped JSU to a .333 hitting percentage for the game.
Jenna Siddiqui had a game-high 30 assists and Angelica Kelly 15 digs.
“I have to give Jackson State credit; they came in and were ready to play tonight,” Head Coach
Penny Lucas-White said. “But I was very disappointed in the way we played. We were tentative and again made too many errors. It is what we have worked on this week was to limit our errors and we could not do that tonight.”
Edwards got her night off to strong start with eight kills in the first set to lead JSU to the 25-18 win. The set was tied 10 times, but with the score even at 12, JSU ran off a 10-3 run to push their lead out to 22-15. The Lady Hornets could not recover from the run.
“Christine showed why she is the best player in the conference,” Lucas-White said. “She seemed to find the open spot on the floor every time she hit the ball. Even when we had her defensed, she was able to tip the ball over our blockers to an open spot.”
Smith did all she could with five kills in the set, but the rest of the team only had four kills as the team hit .107 in the set.
ASU jumped out to a 7-2 lead in the second set only to see the visitors go on a 15-4 run to build a 17-11 lead. ASU would not go away as they battled back and cut the lead to one on three occasions, the last at 20-19. After that JSU would score five of the last six points in the 25-20 win.
Edwards was again big for JSU with seven kills as the Tigers hit .478 in the set and ASU could only manage a .100 hitting percentage. Smith again had five kills in the set to lead ASU.
The final set was all Jackson State as they were able to take advantage of multiple ASU mistakes in winning the set and game 25-14. JSU had their worse hitting performance of the night, hitting only .130 in the set, but 17 hitting errors by the Lady Hornets helped the Tigers with the easy victory.
The loss stops a three-game winning streak for ASU as they fall to 7-23 overall and3-3 in conference action. JSU continues their hot streak with their 15
th consecutive win. They move to 18-11 overall and 6-0 in conference action.
“I still believe we have the ability to get back on a roll in these final regular season games,” Lucas-White said. “We have two more regular season games before the tournament starts and so we have some more time to correct our errors and get better as a team.”
ASU will be back in action Tuesday, Nov.6 when they host Alabama A&M at 7 p.m. The Lady Hornets will hold their second Faculty-Professor Appreciation night before the start of the game. ASU will also be taking up canned food donations at the game to pass out to a food bank at the conference volleyball tournament.
