PENSACOLA, Fla. – The No. 11 SMSU volleyball team finished its first day of the SpringHill Suites Invitational with a 3-0 win over tournament host No. 20 West Florida on Friday night. The Mustangs defeated the Argos by set scores of 25-21, 28-26, and 25-19.
SMSU moves to 2-0 to start the season while UWF drops to 1-1.
West Florida ended the 2023 season with a 25-8 record and advanced to the NCAA Tournament.
Ashley Peltier led the Mustang offense with a match-high 13 kills and .524 hitting percentage while adding four digs and a block on defense.
Saari Kuehl supported the offense with 11 kills, while
Leah Jones and
Karli Arkell added eight and six kills, respectively.
Sydney Thein set up the Mustang offense with 30 assists, while a combined 27 digs from
McKenzie Tolk and
Leah Jones anchored the defense.
Emma VanHeel held the line at the net with three solo blocks.
The two teams went kill-for-kill for the opening 10 points of the match, settling the score at an early 5-5 tie. A barrage of kills from five different Mustangs and an attacking error on the Argonauts gave SMSU a 7-3 run to push the score to 12-8 and force a UWF timeout. Multiple errors from West Florida gave the Mustangs a five-point lead before momentum swung in favor of the Argonauts. UWF used a 4-1 run to force an SMSU timeout at 17-15, but the Mustangs would not go away, using another 5-3 run to close the set 25-21. SMSU hit .321 in the first set with 17 kills, while UWF hit .229 with 13 kills.
SMSU carried the energy from the game one win into the second set by jumping out to a 7-4 lead right away. Shortly after, the Argonauts completely flipped momentum following a 5-1 run that featured three kills and a pair of SMSU errors. Neither team was willing to go down early in the match, trading runs and eventually pushing the score to 25-25. A pair of attacking errors put the Mustangs ahead 27-26 before a service ace from
Leah Jones sealed the deal 28-26. The Argonauts held SMSU to .186 hitting but 11 total errors plagued UWF's chance at securing the win.
Set three was dominated by the Mustangs. SMSU tallied 15 kills on .263 hitting at the net while the back line supported the offense with four service aces. After the teams battled to 10-9, SMSU scored nine of the next 11 points to jump out to a 19-11 lead. West Florida countered with a 7-3 run to claw back to a four-point deficit before a pair of kills and a service ace secured the sweep for the Mustangs.
SMSU is back in action tomorrow with two more matches, playing Oklahoma Baptist at 11:30 a.m., and Wheeling (W. Va.) at 4:30 p.m.
