By David Rogers. BOONE, N.C. — Within the space of just six days, Appalachian State volleyball will play Louisiana three times, including early in next week’s Sun Belt Conference Championships on Thursday, Nov. 17, High Country Sports learned through back channels (the seedings will not be made official until Sunday, after the conclusion of conference play). By “spreading the love” on Nov. 11, the Mountaineers got the first tilt against the Ragin’ Cajuns out of the way with a sweep, 3-0, in front of almost 400 fans at the Holmes Convocation Center.
All three of the sets were nail biting thrillers, especially the first and third. Set scores: 25-23, 25-20, 26-24. The action was fast paced with precise sets and thunderous kill shots on offense, as well as acrobatic digs on defense.
“One of our objectives tonight was to feature a well-balance offensive attack,” Mountaineer head coach Sarah Rumely Noble explained to High Country Sports after the match. “That means we wanted to spread the love, get the ball to different playmakers and not be predictable.”
In a rotation that featured 10 Mountaineer players, all of them taking part in all three sets, five of them had six or more kills, led by Lulu Ambrose and McCall Denny with a dozen apiece, then Maya Winterhoff and Sarah Missroon with 7 each, plus Meghan Dombrowski with six. In Rumely Noble’s parlance, that is “spreading the love.”
The first set was a see-saw battle all the way to match point. It saw the score tied 10 times, with the lead changing hands three times. While App State had a 17-13 advantage in kill shots, the Ragin’ Cajuns stayed close with three service aces.
In the second set, the Mountaineers jumped out to a 12-4 lead before Louisiana went on a 6-2 run to shrink the home team’s advantage to 14-10. But App State got back in synch and held on to win the set, 25-20, with the final two kill shots by Winterhoff to put the set away.
The third set was another nip-and-tuck affair and not decided until overtime. The Ragin’ Cajuns led at 18-14 and seemed on the threshold of sending the match into a fourth set — until kills by Dombrowski, Missroon, Kara Barnes, and Denny propelled the Mountaineers into a tie at 21-21, then into the lead on a Sam Bickley service ace at 24-23. Another kill by Ambrose gave the Mountaineers match point at 25-24, before Dombrowski and Missroon combined to block the Ragin’ Cajuns final kill shot attempt.
“We wanted to play super clean tonight,” said Denny in speaking with High Country Sports after the match. “That means not making high errors and not being high errors. That is something we did really well tonight. We may have swept them in the first game but I expect it will be harder in the next one (on Saturday, Nov. 12) and then in Round 1 of the tournament.
“We never expected to sweep,” Denny added, “but Coach Sarah always says, ‘Whatever it takes to win.’ We had some trouble earlier in the season to win the first and second sets and we were able to get those tonight. Being down in the third was actually good for us because it challenged us to work and come back… We are playing really well right now as a team, not as all individual parts.”
Winning 10 out of the last 11 matches is giving the Mountaineers a lot of confidence going into the tournament.
“When she became the new coach, she made some changes in our offensive and defensive schemes, including changing some of the players’ primary roles,” said Denny. “She told us at the beginning that we would be playing our best volleyball in November, and she was right.”
Rumely Noble was similarly enthusiastic about the Mountaineers prospects going into the tournament.
“We were firing on all cylinders tonight and pretty well balanced. All of our attackers were able to put up some good numbers. It wasn’t just one star. When we are balanced, we become much harder to defend. Our opponent doesn’t know who we are going to set in any particular moment,” said Rumely Noble.
Being her first year at the helm of the Mountaineers, Rumely Noble inherited her roster, so getting the players to buy into what and how she wanted the team to play was job No. 1.
“Our goal is to get better every day, to get better every time we put the jersey on. We wanted to be playing our best volleyball at the end of the season and we are doing that. Now I believe our brand of volleyball is good enough to compete with anybody,” said Rumely Noble. “The biggest thing for us was developing a strong offensive system and a strong defensive system, getting everyone on the same page of ‘This is how we are playing offense. This is how we are playing defense.’ We picked a couple of things to get really good at, at the beginning, as opposed to 20 things to get mediocre at. We are all serving the same way. We all look the same when we serve. And our service tonight was very good. That is something they can trust in.
“Any time you are changing systems, it just takes a lot of repetitions,” said Rumely Noble. “We inserted (the changes) last January when we got to practice, but it hasn’t all started to come together until the last month, really. We are a very different team, even though we have the same pieces than when we started the season in August.”
App State will take on the Ragin’ Cajuns again on Saturday, Nov. 12, at 1 p.m. at the Holmes Convocation Center.
SELECTED TEAM STATS (3-set totals)
- Kills – App State 76, UL 67
- Service Aces – App State 3, UL 8
- Blocks – App State 9, UL 7
- Attack Errors – App State 14, UL 19
- Set Assists – App State 43, UL 33
SELECTED INDIVIDUAL STATS (3-set totals)
- APP – Lulu Ambrose 12 kills, 2 total blocks, 2 digs
- APP – McCall Denny 12 kills, 9 digs
- APP – Maya Winterhoff 7 kills, 7 digs, 3 total blocks
- APP – Sam Bickley 20 assist, 6 digs
- APP – Sophie Cain 16 assists, 7 digs
- UL – Coco Gillett 10 kills, 10 digs
- UL – Cami Hicks 6 kills, 2 service aces, 4 total blocks
- UL – Siena Decambra 21 assists, 3 kills, 8 digs
- UL – Paige Guidry 3 service aces, 6 digs
