Women's Volleyball . September 5, 2024

Volleyball Opens Home Schedule With Two Weekend Matches

COLUMBIA, S.C. – Fresh off a pair of wins in the opening weekend of the season, South Carolina volleyball settles in for a seven-game home stand that begins with matches against Temple (3-1) and North Carolina (3-0) this weekend. The Gamecocks (2-1) will face the Owls on Friday, Sept. 6 at 6 p.m. and return back to the Carolina Volleyball Center (CVC) on Sunday, Sept. 8 for a 2 p.m. match against the Tar Heels.

Few venues feature the atmosphere of the Carolina Volleyball Center, and Gamecock fans came out in record-setting numbers last fall. The team had more games with 2,000 or more fans in 2023 (5) than in the previous 49 seasons of volleyball at South Carolina combined (3), and six of the top-10 most-attended matches in program history came in the team’s first eight home games. The Gamecocks ranked 44th nationally for total attendance (23,114) and 43rd in average attendance (1,651 per game) in 2023, despite having the smallest capacity gym of any team ranked ahead of it. The team broke the single-season home attendance record in 2023, welcoming in 23,114 fans, surpassing the previous record of 18,797, set during the 2018 season.

For fans attending home matches this weekend and all season long at the Carolina Volleyball Center (CVC), parking is available in the lot directly in front of Thirsty Fellow restaurant (behind 650 Lincoln Dorms). It is not advised that any parking occur in the lot facing Assembly Street as tickets could be issued. There is also a lot available off Park Street next to the Strom Thurmond Fitness Center as well as the Horizon Garage off Assembly Street.

The volleyball program now has a specific supporter group that is aimed at their most loyal fans. The funds generated through the Volleyball VIP Club will go directly to the program to support student-athletes. In addition to other benefits, membership includes free admission to all regular season home matches. Tickets can be purchased on-site or through THIS LINK. Single-game tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for youth 17 and under, and $3 for groups of 15 or more (with pre-purchase). The physical address for the CVC is 1051 Blossom Street, Columbia, S.C. 29201. The student entrance will be the doors facing the Blossom and Assembly Street intersection, for general admission and VIP ticket holders, the entrance is off Park Street.

SCOUTING THE OWLS
Temple started its season with four home games over the long Labor Day weekend, garnering a 3-1 record entering Friday’s match. The single loss came against No. 7 Penn State in straight sets. Last season, Temple finished 17-14 overall, the team’s best record since 2017. Within the American Atlantic Conference (AAC), the Owls rank first in team assists (165) and team kills (173) through week one. Graduate student and Columbia native Taylor Davenport leads the team and earned herself AAC Preseason All-Conference honors, the first Temple player to do so since 2021. For 2024, Davenport leads the team in kills (4.08 per set) and is tied for second in digs (21), third in service aces (3) and third in blocks (7.0). Freshman Sydney Jones follows Davenport in kills (3.15 per set) and digs (21) while leading the team in service aces (6). The Owls were picked to finish eighth out of 14 teams for this season’s AAC Preseason Poll.

SCOUTING THE TAR HEELS
After opening its season with three wins at home, North Carolina makes its first trip to the Carolina Volleyball Center in 20 years this weekend. The Tar Heels won every set along the way in week one, placing the team at the top of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) in assists per set (14.44) and kills per set (15.78). After finishing the 2023 season with a 13-14 record, going 7-11 in conference matchups, the Tar Heels were picked to finish tenth in the ACC preseason poll. North Carolina looks to senior Mabrey Shaffmaster to continue her offensive dominance. Shaffmaster entered the season with 1,160 career kills and was named to the Preseason All-ACC team for the third season in a row. Last season, she finished as the team’s leader in kills (364) and service aces (37). On the defensive side, junior libero Maddy May leads the team this year in digs (38) and sits third in assists (13) after three games played.

WEEK ONE NOTABLES

It was the first time since 2020 that the Gamecocks opened a season away from home.
The Jayhawks finished the season opener with a 7-1 advantage in service aces while committing just one more error behind the line than South Carolina. Jolie Cranford recorded the team’s lone ace, her first collegiate point with the indoor squad.
Riley Whitesides had 44 kills over 10 sets in week one, moving her past Megan Laughlin (2007-10) for the sixth-most kills by a Gamecock in the rally-scoring era (since 2001).
Victoria Harris started as the team’s libero Friday night. She and current teammate Morgan Carter are the only Gamecocks to be the team’s primary libero as a true freshman since the position was introduced in collegiate volleyball in 2002. The Columbia native led the team with 10 digs and also passed out six assists.
The Gamecocks did not trail for a single point on Saturday against Colgate, the match also featured only three ties.
Following the Colgate win, Ellie Ruprich moved into the top 10 for most sets played in the rally scoring era (since 2001), now with 391 for her career.
Tireh Smith stepped into the lineup late in the first set against Colgate and finished with career highs in kills (7) and blocks (4) while hitting .400.
Along with eight kills, junior Alayna Johnson added two service aces, five digs, two blocks and an assist against Colgate.
Brooke Doherty, playing just 30 minutes from her hometown of Holly Springs, recorded her first kill as a Gamecock to clinch the win in set three against Colgate. Doherty sat out last season as a transfer, in her 2022 freshman season at Elon she recorded 112 kills in 55 sets.
Riley Whitesides’ 23 kills in the weekend finale against Duke matched her career high, set previously over five sets against Florida on 11/12/20. It is her third career 20-kill game.
Victoria Harris led the defense with 23 digs against Duke, the most by a Gamecock freshman since Taylr McNeil on Sept. 6, 2014 (23 vs. Furman).
Elizabeth McElveen shattered her career high for digs, popping up 17 in the Duke win. Her previous high was seven, against Kansas in the season opener. McElveen had 13 digs total in her freshman season (31 sets).
Sarah Jordan enjoyed her best game of the weekend, passing out 46 assists and adding 14 digs, one block, two kills and a service ace against the Blue Devils.
After allowing 23 kills to Duke in the second set alone, South Carolina’s defense limited the Blue Devils to just 25 kills combined in the final two sets.
Efficiency behind the service line was a key stat on Sunday at Duke; both teams had just one service ace but the Blue Devils committed 10 more errors (13-3).

QUOTABLE: TOM MENDOZA
Reflecting on the opening weekend
“We’ve played well at home so to be able to go back to the CVC 2-1, we’re excited to be home. We knew going into this weekend, three wins would be a dream. We were capable of it, but it would be the dream scenario, 2-1 would still be great because of the strength of the four teams that were here. Long term, it’s two good resume wins as we try to build the case for postseason and try to build that season-long resume, but short term for our team to be able to draw upon these and know we’re good enough to beat good teams. I don’t think we were perfect, but we were good enough on two of the three days and that’s a good thing for us to build on and gives our team confidence. Starting from Friday to today, we thought we were more and more confident that we were going to come up out on the positive end of tight sets and tight matches and that’s invaluable as you go through the season.”

On the team’s defense making adjustments in-game
“The defense was awesome. Until you play other teams it’s hard to know how good your defense is and that was a really pleasant surprise. Not that I didn’t think our players were capable of it, but to see the plays that they were making consistently is what you want to give yourself a chance to win. The fact that we could match teams, especially as scrappy as Duke, is a great thing to be able to draw upon as we go through the season.”

DOUBLE TROUBLE
Few teams in the country can match the production and consistency of South Carolina’s middle blockers Oby Anadi and Ellie Ruprich. The two entered 2024 with over 700 combined blocks. Last fall, the two became the first pair of Gamecocks to record 100+ total blocks in back-to-back seasons since 1995 (Heather Larkin and DeeDee Fortman) and 1996 (Larkin and Lori Drost). Going back to the earliest available statistics (1983), the program had never seen the same two individuals surpass 100 blocks in successive seasons.

SETTING THE SCENE
The team carries three setters on the roster for 2024, bringing back junior Kimmie Thompson and sophomore Sydney Floyd and adding in Towson transfer Sarah Jordan, but the team did lose Claire Wilson to a medical retirement. Jordan had success and experience running both a single-setter and two-setter offense during her career at Towson, and played almost the entire first weekend as the lone setter for Carolina. Over 10 sets, Jordan averaged 9.80 assists over three matches. The Gamecocks are looking to improve the offense’s connection after back-to-back seasons flirting with a .200 team hitting percentage – the lowest two so far under head coach Tom Mendoza.

FIVE FACES IN NEW PLACES
The Gamecocks added five to the roster for the fall season. Each of the five have a different background to bring to a squad featuring 11 returners

Jolie Cranford (Highlands Ranch, Colo.) joins the indoor team after two standout seasons with Gamecock beach volleyball. She will continue to play beach in the spring. She enters her junior season as the beach program’s winningest player on the active roster, holding a career mark of 41-21. Her .661 win percentage through two seasons currently ranks seventh in program history for Gamecocks with at least 50 career starts.
Maggie Elliott (Mount Pleasant, S.C.) is the third crossover athlete on the roster, joining Riley Whitesides and Jolie Cranford on the beach volleyball team. She earned four letters at Lucy Garrett Beckham high school, playing for her mother, Adria, who played collegiate volleyball at Florida State. Her father also has a strong athletic background, competing in beach volleyball on the AVP Pro Tour for 16 years and also working as a collegiate beach coach. Maggie led her high school team in kills for all four years of high school, surpassing 1,000 in her career.
Victoria Harris (Columbia, S.C.) will be a freshman this fall, but enrolled early with the Gamecocks and spent the spring semester training and rehabbing a high school injury. She totaled over 1,300 digs and over 1,400 service receptions at Cardinal Newman high school, leading the team to two South Carolina state championships.
Sarah Jordan (Leesburg, Va. / Towson) transferred to the Gamecocks after two seasons at Towson, playing in 56 total matches as the team’s setter. She finished her time as a Tiger with over 1500 assists and 400 digs, also adding 45 service aces behind the line. Jordan led the Tigers in assists with 973 and averaged 9.18 assists per set as a sophomore in 2023, also recording career highs in digs and kills.
Anna Wilson (Burlington, Ontario, Canada / High Point) transferred after two seasons at High Point; after redshirting as a true freshman, she played in 15 matches in 2023. Her top performance with the Panthers came in the Big South conference tournament title match, where she hit .412 with seven kills against Winthrop on Nov. 19, 2023.

A VICTORIOUS RETURN
She might have played high school volleyball just down the road from the Carolina Volleyball Center, but freshman Victoria Harris has taken the long way to collegiate volleyball. A standout libero at Cardinal Newman School, about 10 miles to the northeast of downtown Columbia, Harris had to overcome two serious injuries to make it to the next phase of her volleyball career.

In September 2022, she fractured her hip during a game after a teammate landed on her. She recovered in time to play the following season, but endured another setback when she tore her ACL in August of 2023. She had surgery on her knee in October and then worked towards graduating early from high school and enrolling at South Carolina for the spring semester.

She was finally cleared for full action at the end of July and immediately jumped into an important role for the Gamecocks. In week one, Harris played all three games as the team’s libero and averaged 4.20 digs per set. Her 23 digs in the weekend finale at Duke led the defense and is the most by a Gamecock freshman since Taylr McNeil on Sept. 6, 2014 (23 vs. Furman). If Harris retains the role, she would join current senior Morgan Carter as the only Gamecocks to play libero as true freshmen since the position was first introduced in college volleyball in 2002.

ANADI READY TO PEAK IN SENIOR SEASON
Senior middle Oby Anadi made herself known as a blocker over her first season and a half in the lineup but she still was working her way into the team’s offensive game plan. The 2023 season proved that growth, as she set career highs on offense AND defense. Anadi totaled 119 kills over her first two seasons (41 matches), but finished with 146 over 27 matches. On defense, she had a personal-best 129 total blocks last fall and became the first Gamecock since Belita Salters in 2007 to have a hand in 50 percent or more of the team’s total blocks. Anadi’s 281 total blocks currently ranks eighth for most in the rally scoring era. In the team’s opening weekend of action, she hit .333 with 1.70 kills per set.

TRYING TO PIN DOWN THE OFFENSE
The team graduated Kiune Fletcher, its top offensive producer from 2023, and will look ahead to a mix of veterans and rising young talent to find new production on the left and right pins this fall. Riley Whitesides missed most of the final month of last season due to injury but enters her fifth year already with 1,000 career kills. Joining her on the left pin is rising junior Alayna Johnson, who also has battled injuries in the past but had a career year in 2023 and is credited by the coaching staff as one of the strongest performers during the spring training season.

On the right, Fletcher put together one of the best seasons by an opposite in the program’s modern era, hitting .266 with 245 total kills. The team will look to Campbell Paris or Tireh Smith to play the crucial two-way role of stout defender and reliable offensive option on the right; Paris had 188 kills over 23 games in her 2023 freshman season, she also trains on the left pin. Smith missed the first half of last fall with a broken finger, but made it on the court for eight matches and has proven to be a solid blocker.

SAVING THE BEST FOR LAST
An electric offensive performance carried South Carolina to a three-set sweep of eighth-ranked Tennessee in the 2023 regular season finale. The Gamecocks hit .488 as a team, the highest of any SEC team during conference play last fall, to overpower the Volunteers. Alayna Johnson led the way with a career-high 17 kills, hitting .464 along the way.

The victory marked the sixth season in a row where South Carolina defeated a ranked opponent, extending the longest streak since joining the SEC in 1991. Tennessee is the third top-10-ranked team beaten during the streak, joining No. 5 Kentucky in 2021 and No. 4 Florida in 2020.

The Gamecocks enter 2024 with nine wins over ranked opponents since head coach Tom Mendoza was hired in 2018. The program had just nine ranked wins total in the 27 seasons prior to his arrival (1991-2017).

WHITESIDES CARRIES OCTOBER MOMENTUM INTO 2024
The loss of senior Riley Whitesides to injury late last season came at an inopportune time for the Gamecocks, as the veteran pin was in the midst of one of the best stretches of her career during the month of October.

The Greenville native finished with more kills (103), digs (74) and service aces (8) in eight October matches than in any of the previous three seasons of her career. The injury forced her out of two games completely, and even after she was cleared to play she was limited to a back-row-only role in the final three games of the season, where she was unable to be part of the offense. Despite the setback, Whitesides still put up career numbers for digs and led the team in service aces while coming just short of matching her kill total from her junior campaign. In the team’s six games against ranked opponents when she was healthy, Whitesides averaged 3.36 kills per set and her 84 total kills were 27 more than anyone else on the team.

A healthy Whitesides enjoyed a breakout season with the beach volleyball team in the spring semester, moving up to the top pairing by the end of the season and finishing with a 20-15 overall record. Of her 20 wins, nine came on court one, 10 on court two and five came against nationally ranked opponents.

Week one of the 2024 indoor season showed that she is not slowing down just yet. Over 10 sets in three matches at Duke, Whitesides led the team with 44 kills and a .261 hitting percentage, highlighted by a career-high 23 kills over four sets against the host Blue Devils.

GETTING THE SAND OUT OF THEIR SHOES
The indoor team has three indoor-to-beach crossover athletes on the roster this fall, with each Gamecock bringing a different background. The three crossovers are the most under head coach Tom Mendoza and are the most on a roster since the 2014 season.

Leading the way is Riley Whitesides, who moved from an indoor-only role to beach as her spring sport during the 2022-23 school year and broke out last season on the sand. She moved up to the top court by the end of the season and finished with a 20-15 overall record.

Jolie Cranford moves from a beach-only career to an indoor role, staying true to her roots. Cranford, a native of Colorado, played indoor exclusively until late in her high school career when the COVID-19 pandemic pushed her athletic pursuits outdoors. Now two seasons into her beach career, she enters 2023-24 as the team’s winningest player on the active roster, holding a career mark of 41-21 through two seasons.

The final crossover athlete is Maggie Elliott. Originally committed to Florida State as both an indoor and beach athlete, the Charleston native opted to stay in-state for her collegiate career. As an indoor volleyball athlete, she played for her mother, Adria, and led her high school team in kills for all four years on the varsity roster.

RUPRICH REACHES ANOTHER MAJOR MILESTONE
Graduate student Ellie Ruprich became just the eighth woman in program history to reach 400 career blocks last fall, she is just the third woman in the modern scoring era (since 2001) to reach 400 career blocks, joining Darian Dozier (2012-15) and Mikayla Robinson (2017-21).

Among current active players, Ruprich ranks second across all NCAA divisions for solo blocks and 13th in total blocks. The Beverly Hills, Michigan native is still in the hunt of some rarely contested records. In the rally scoring record book, Ruprich surpassed Mikayla Robinson’s solo block record (now with 97). In the all-time record book, she ranks fifth for solo blocks, sixth in block assists and fifth in total blocks.

Going off her career average of at least 100 blocks per season, Ruprich projects to land every rally-scoring era record by the end of her career and may become just the third woman in program history with 500 career blocks.

A GRAND PERFORMANCE
With a team-high 15 kills against No. 13 Kentucky on Nov. 3, 2023, Riley Whitesides surpassed 1,000 career kills. She is just the seventh woman since 2001 to reach 1,000, and only 16 other Gamecocks in the 50-season history of the program have reached the milestone. On Sept. 24, Whitesides also reached 1,000 career points in the team’s match at Missouri, making her the fourth Gamecock in the last decade and ninth overall since 2001 to reach that milestone.

HIGHS AND LOWS AT THE NET
South Carolina’s defensive calling card remains at the net, as the Gamecocks finished fourth in the SEC with an average of 2.46 blocks per set last fall. For as good as the Gamecock block was, however, opponents were better. South Carolina opponents averaged 2.75 blocks per set when facing the Gamecocks, far and away the most in the SEC. The team allowed 10 or more blocks in 16 of its 27 games overall and nine of 18 conference games. The 2.75 blocks per set against them is the the highest single-season average for Gamecock opponents in the rally-scoring era (since 2001).

VOLLEYBALL FINALIZES STAFF
Head coach Tom Mendoza promoted Ethan Pheister to Associate Head Coach and hired Jimmy Kim as the team’s Technical Coordinator. Pheister is also preparing for his seventh season at South Carolina, serving predominantly as the team’s defensive coordinator. In his time with the Gamecocks, he has developed the team’s middle blockers into one of the best positional groups in the Southeastern Conference. In the modern scoring era (since 2001), he has trained four of the 11 student-athletes who have totaled 250 or more blocks, highlighted by Mikayla Robinson (2017-21) and Ellie Ruprich (2020-Present). The duo rank third and fifth, respectively, for total blocks in the program’s 50-year history. As a team, the Gamecocks have consistently ended the season in the top three of the SEC and top 50 nationally for average blocks per set during Pheister’s tenure.

Kim comes to South Carolina from UC Irvine. He began working with the UCI women’s volleyball program in 2022 as its technical coordinator, and added the same duties with the Anteater’s men’s program the following year. This summer, Kim also added Technical Coordinator duties for USA Volleyball, working with the national team during its run in the Volleyball Nations League.

STATUS QUO IN THE CLASSROOM
The program improved its streak to 15 seasons in a row earning the AVCA’s Team Academic Award, announced on July 17. The Gamecocks have put 10 or more individuals on the SEC’s Fall Academic Honor Roll for eight seasons in a row and placed 16 members on either the Fall or First-Year Academic Honor Rolls in the 2023-24 school year. This comes despite an ambitious list of majors that spans the world-renowned business school, sports science fields and education.

MENDOZA’S TRENDING TOPICS
In Head Coach Tom Mendoza’s tenure with the team…

Home is where the heart is. The Gamecocks are 57-25 (.714) at the Carolina Volleyball Center in Mendoza’s seven seasons.
September is the team’s best month, combining for a 34-16 mark. The highlight came in 2018 with a perfect 9-0 record in September, the first Gamecock squad since 1983 to do so.
The team is 75-13 when winning the first set, 17-63 when losing it.
In five-set matches, the team holds an 24-14 record. In the three years prior to his arrival, the Gamecocks were just 7-8 in five-setters.
The offense finished with a higher hitting percentage than its opponents 93 times and have lost just nine of those matches.
Aces have been a key to victory; under Mendoza the Gamecocks are 68-16 when matching or surpassing opponents in aces.
If the back line is locked in, the odds swing heavily in South Carolina’s favor; the team has a 49-11 record when finishing with more digs in a match since Mendoza arrived in 2018.

ALL TIME RECORDS

South Carolina holds an 879-701 (.556) all-time record, dating back to it’s first season as a varsity sport in 1974. The team’s 800th win came on Aug. 25, 2018 against Clemson.
The Gamecocks joined the SEC for volleyball in 1991, and have an all-time conference record of 234-323 (.420) in the 31st season as a member. The 200th SEC win came on Nov. 8, 2019 at Mississippi St.
The team has a 17-16 overall record in the opening game of SEC play.
In matches in the Carolina Volleyball Center, opened in 1996, Carolina is 247-136 (.645) overall and 128-117 (.525) in SEC matches. The CVC’s 200th win came on Nov. 16, 2018 against Ole Miss.
Tom Mendoza was introduced as the program’s 13th head coach on Jan. 3, 2018. This is his ninth season overall as a head coach, with a career record of 139-97 and a record of 92-79 at South Carolina. He has led his teams to the NCAA tournament in five of his eight years as a head coach and is just the fourth coach in South Carolina’s history to reach 75 career wins.