Category | Sports

Volleyball starts on promising note

Published on August 31, 2009 by Ben Hampton

The KSU women’s volleyball team competed in the Staybridge Suites Rocket Classic hosted by the University of Toledo Aug. 28-29.

First-year head coach Karen Weatherington led the Owls to a 2-0 start for the first time in the program’s four year history along with a trip to the championship match.

In their opening match, KSU defeated Marist 3-2 (25-16, 25-18, 22-25, 22-25, 15-10) with a strong performance from senior Chelsey Denesha. During the five-set victory, Chelsey had a career high 21 digs along with 13 kills to complete her double-double.

After the Owls won the first two sets of the match, Marist came back to win two of their own. In the fifth and final set of the night, Callie Churchwell and Sabrita Gulley came up big to propel KSU to the victory.

“This team left it all on the court in the fifth set,” Weatherington said. “I challenged Sabrita and Callie to play with aggression but intelligence. Those two along with Chelsey and Ginny really showed a lot of grit in the final set.”

On Saturday afternoon KSU took on the Bryant Bulldogs. In their second match of the tournament, the ladies defeated the Bulldogs 3-1 (25-22, 25-18, 21-25, 25-22) on a MVP performance from senior Asjia Stokes. She led all players with 14 kills, five digs and five blocks.

“Asjia was phenomenal in the clutch,” Weatherington said. “She stepped up right when we needed and just gave a tremendous performance.

“We needed to be tested. Bryant is a scrappy, tough team that gave us a great fight,” Weatherington said.  “We’re looking forward to playing the championship match tonight against a very solid Toledo squad.”

During the championship match of the tournament the Owls fell to a very tough Toledo team 3-1 (23-25, 25-12, 25-20, 25-23). After playing a tightly contested opening set, Toledo came back and won three straight.

Although the team did not take home the championship, all was not lost as the Owls showed a lot of promise for the upcoming season. Sabrita Gulley and Asjia Strokes played well for KSU and were named to the All-Tournament Team. Selina O’Leary also played well and contributed a career-high 22 digs, while Eman Burns had another 17 digs for KSU.

“Selina was huge defensively,” Weatherington said. ”She’s made a commitment to really directing our defense this year and we saw that come to life in the first two matches, but especially against Toledo. Eman also played very well for us on the back row.  She made a lot of impressive plays for us.”

The women’s volleyball team will play their next match Friday, Sept. 4 when they host the Great 8 Volleyball Challenge presented by Residence Inn - Kennesaw. The ladies will take on Alabama A&M at 7:30 p.m. at the KSU Convocation Center.