Aug. 25, 2006
Oxford, Miss. - The Western Carolina volleyball team opened the 2006 season dropping a pair of matches at the Magnolia Invitational, hosted by the University of Mississippi. Early Friday morning, the Catamounts and Arkansas-Little Rock kicked off the event with UALR claiming a 3-1 (30-24, 25-30, 30-22, 30-23) decision. Later in the afternoon, Western faced host team Ole Miss and fell 3-0 (30-20, 30-19, 30-24).
The Catamounts will return to the Gillom Sports Center on Saturday to face Southeast Missouri at 9:30 am (CT) and Pittsburgh at 2:30 pm (CT). Ole Miss is providing live stats for each contest and fans can follow by clicking the "camera icon" coinciding with the appropriate match at the link below:
In its first match, Western freshman Katie Hennessey spread the ball over five players to register 33 assists. The Cats were paced by senior Heather Koontz and freshman Amanda Kerr, each of whom tallied 10 kills. Kerr also only had four errors on 27 attempts while classmate Brittny Johnson had a .500 hitting percentage, getting nine kills on 18 attempts with zero errors. Johnson added a team-high five blocks as well. Senior Meghan Boyle and junior Meredith Harmon added eight and seven kills, respectively. Freshman libero Liz Rondone led the defensive effort with 18 digs with Boyle chipping in 13.
"Katie Hennessey did a good job of distributing the ball in the first match as is evident by how even our attack was," said second-year head coach Stephanie Dragan. "I was pleased with the level of play from Brittny Johnson and Amanda Kerr. At times we had four freshmen on the court and, for their first collegiate game, played very well.
"Prior to game two, Katie injured herself so we had to shuffle the lineup. Liz Rondone moved from libero to outside hitter. At 5-6, she did a good job swinging and not being intimidated by Ole Miss' big blocks. Amanda was forced to move to right back, making it the first time she has ever played at that position. She did a good job there and at the net for us. Overall, I was very pleased with the play of our freshman. We will try again to do it better tomorrow."
In game two versus the home-standing Rebels, Rondone had five kills, 14 digs and a block assist. Kerr added six kills and seven digs with Johnson tallying four kills with zero errors in 13 attempts. Koontz recorded nine kills on 39 attempts with Kate Willard getting 10 digs.
