Gamecocks Host Ole Miss for Senior Night Friday

COLUMBIA, S.C. – South Carolina volleyball enters its penultimate weekend of the regular season on Friday, when it hosts Ole Miss for a 7 p.m. first serve with the Rebels. The Gamecocks will honor their five-member senior class (Callie Brown, Aubrey Ezell, Courtney Furlong, Emma Lock, Jesse Turner) prior to the start of the match. Capping the weekend of action will be a road match against LSU on Sunday. The 4 p.m. ET match with the Tigers will air on the SEC Network+.

GAMECOCKS REMAIN IN RPI TOP 30, RECEIVE VOTES IN AVCA TOP 25
South Carolina remain at No. 25 in the seventh RPI ranking of the season, released by the NCAA on Monday afternoon. The Gamecocks have a 10-5 record against team’s currently ranked in the top 100 of the RPI, with three wins over top 50 teams. South Carolina ended the 2017 season ranked 156th in the RPI standings. The team also received 27 votes in the latest top-25 coaches poll, the fourth-most among unranked teams. The last time South Carolina made the top 25 was in 2002.

SCOUTING OLE MISS
The Rebels have lost four straight coming into Friday night, but have also had a tough schedule in November with matches against No. 25 Tennessee, No. 12 Kentucky, and road matches at LSU and Texas A&M. Ole Miss starts and stops with junior Emily Stroup, who leads the SEC with 4.74 kills per set and accounts for 36 percent of the team’s total kills and 34 percent of its total attacks. The team has struggled to replace two key outside hitters from 2017, as Kate Gibson and Lexi Thompson were each six-rotation hitters who graduated as members of the elite 1,000 kills/1,000 digs club. Senior Caitlin Wernetin has stepped in as a viable number two option on the attack, improving from 1.44 kills per set in 2017 to 2.35 this year. Defensively, Ole Miss ranks third in the SEC with 14.82 digs per set, but is allowing opponents to hit .233, ranking 11th in the conference.

LAST TIME VS. THE REBELS…
The 2017 season ended with a loss to Ole Miss in Oxford, as the Rebels won in four sets. Mikayla Shields would be a bright spot, with 17 kills and a .366 hitting percentage, but the home side finished with an incredible 83 digs and got 23 kills from Emily Stroup to beat the Gamecocks.

SCOUTING LSU
The Tigers are one of the hottest teams in the SEC at the moment, riding a four-game win streak into the weekend. The team will play at Florida on Friday night before welcoming the Gamecocks to the Maravich Center. LSU leans heavily on the arm of sophomore Taylor Bannister to guide the offense; the 2017 All-SEC honoree is accounting for almost a third of the team’s total kills (401 total, 4.22 per set). Five other Tigers are averaging 1.50 kills or more per set. Defensively, LSU ranks second in the SEC with 15.48 digs per set, libero Raigen Cianciulli ranks second in the SEC with 4.76 digs per set, and both Whitney Foreman and Jacqui Armer are averaging a block per set.

LAST TIME VS. THE TIGERS…
South Carolina swept LSU at home on Sept. 23, the team’s third win in the last four meetings. The Gamecocks held the Tigers to a .103 hitting percentage in the win, with the trio of Britt McLean, Mikayla Robinson and Mikayla Shields accounting for 25 of the team’s 35 total kills. LSU was led by standout sophomore Taylor Bannister, who had 12 kills but hit just .125 for the match.

WEEK 8 NOTABLES (TEXAS A&M)

• Now winners of three straight, this is the first time in 12 years that the team has a win streak of three matches or more in the month of November.
• Thanks to two more aces Friday, Aubrey Ezell now has the most aces in a single season by any SEC student-athlete over the last 10 seasons (59).
• With 47 assists, Courtney Koehler moved up to 10th for most in a single season during the rally-scoring era.
• For a single game, Koehler’s six aces are a new career high. It’s the most in a single match by any Gamecock since Aubrey Ezell’s seven on Aug. 31 at Rice.
• With 14 more kills and a .423 hitting percentage, Mikayla Robinson continues a recent hot streak. The sophomore is hitting .372 with 48 kills over the last five matches.
• Jess Vastine and Aubrey Ezell accounted for 41 of the team’s 76 total digs. It was the first time this season that the Gamecocks had two different players with 20 or more digs in a match.
• Now with nine wins, this is the fourth time since 2001 that the team will finish .500 or better in the SEC.
• The net defense for South Carolina was pivotal, as it out-blocked Texas A&M 13-4. It was the most in a single match since Sept. 30 at Georgia, and helped hold the Aggies to a .110 hitting percentage. It’s the fourth time this SEC season where the defense held the opposition to under .150. The biggest blocks came to open the decisive fifth set, as Mikayla Robinson blocked three balls to spark the emphatic win.

SHIELD BEARER
Last season, Mikayla Shields became the third sophomore in the program’s 46-year history to make it to 700 career kills. In the Oct. 24 match at Tennessee, Shields cracked the 1,000 kill plateau, making her the fifth Gamecock in program history to reach 1,000 as a junior. She is 15th member of the program ever to reach 1,000 kills, and the fourth-fastest (making it in her 80th career game). The last Gamecock to reach 1,000 kills was Juliette Thévenin in 2012.

AUBREY ACE-ZELL
Senior libero Aubrey Ezell has an ace in 16 of the team’s 24 matches this season, and ranks third in the program’s all-time history for her career with 196. She currently leads the SEC and ranks third nationally with 0.66 aces/set, and is the NCAA’s active career leader. Her 59 aces this season are a career high, and are the most by any Gamecock since Cally Plummer’s total of 86 in 1998, coming in the sideout-scoring era. Accounting for every season where stats were kept – regardless of scoring format – Ezell’s 59 aces currently ranks seventh overall. Among SEC rivals, only three other individuals have reached 50 aces in a single season over the last decade, but Ezell’s 2018 total already ranks number one. In her career, Ezell has three of the top 10 season totals in the SEC over the last decade.

MENDOZA ENJOYING STRONG 1ST SEASON at SC
Tom Mendoza became the 13th head coach in Gamecock volleyball’s 46-year history on Jan. 3, 2018. Mendoza spent 2016 and 2017 as head coach at High Point University, where he led the Panthers to back-to-back NCAA tournament appearances. Following the 2017 season, Mendoza was named the Big South’s and AVCA Southeast Region’s Coach of the Year. Already this year, South Carolina’s 18 wins are tied for the most since 2008, have the most SEC wins since 2008, and have clinched at least a .500 record in conference play for just the fourth time in the rally-scoring era.

GAMECOCKS FIGHT THROUGH TOUGH SEC SLATE
South Carolina has reached its highest SEC win total in a decade, despite facing perhaps the toughest conference schedule of any school. Currently in fifth place, the Gamecocks have home-and-away series with three of the current top four teams in the conference standings (Kentucky, Florida, Missouri), as well as sixth-place Texas A&M. The combined record of the six SEC opponents South Carolina faces twice this season is 55-31 (.640), compared to a 29-57 (.337) record for the six teams the Gamecocks face just once.

EZELL IN A CLASS OF HER OWN
Aubrey Ezell passed 175 career aces during the team’s win over Mississippi State on Friday, Sept. 21, making her the only player in the program’s 45-year history to reach 2,000 assists, 1,000 digs and 175 aces in a career.

KOEHLER SETTING HER SIGHTS ON SC RECORDS
Junior Courtney Koehler has guided the team’s offense as its lone setter for the past two seasons, and her production has her leaping up the program’s record book. The Asheville, N.C. native moved into the program’s all-time top 10 for career assists this season and she currently sits eighth overall in Carolina’s 46-year history and second among setters in the rally-scoring era (since 2001). Koehler’s 2017 total of 1,123 assists put her third in for most in a season for the era, her 867 going into the weekend ranks 10th for a season, and she currently ranks fifth in the SEC with 9.74 assists per set.

IMPROVED LEFT SIDE ATTACK GUIDING OFFENSE
Junior Britt McLean and sophomore Jess Vastine have given a facelift to one of South Carolina’s weaknesses in 2017 – consistent offensive numbers from the left-side attack. McLean and Vastine’s combined numbers (4.36 kills per set, .203 hitting percentage, .354 kill percentage) compare favorably to the combined numbers of the Gamecocks’ four main left-side hitters from 2017 (5.54 k/s, .153 hitting percentage, .308 kill percentage).

IRON WOMAN 
Aubrey Ezell is on an impressive streak for the Gamecocks. The senior has not missed a single set in her career, entering Friday on a stretch of 115 matches played. Currently, her 425 total sets ranks 2nd in the rally-scoring era and 115 matches rank fifth, but no other player has played as many consecutively.

WHEN THE GAMECOCKS WIN…

• The team is out-hitting the opposition .259 to .174, and are limiting opponents to 10.90 kills per set.
• Serving numbers are positive, with an average of 1.74 aces per set, 1.65 service errors per ace and a team serving percentage of .878.
• The team sees significant numbers from its middle hitters, as Claire Edwards and Mikayla Robinson combine for 4.22 kills per set, a .324 hitting percentage and a .467 kill percentage.

WHEN THE GAMECOCKS LOSE…

• The offense is hitting just .183 in losses, opponents are hitting .295.
• Opponents have exploited the serve game, averaging 1.81 aces per set and just 1.42 service errors per ace (compared to 2.63 errors per ace in Gamecock wins).
• Production from Carolina’s middles dips dramatically. Robinson and Edwards combine to average just 3.00 kills per set with a .119 hitting percentage and .377 kill percentage in six losses.
• Opponents are out-blocking South Carolina 2.64 to 1.43.

DOUBLE-DOUBLE THE TROUBLE
After going for 19 kills and 10 digs in the win over Missouri on Nov. 2, Mikayla Shields moved up to 15th in program history for career double-doubles. Teammate Aubrey Ezell also ranks 15th – only six Gamecocks total have gone over 20 career double-doubles in the last 15 years.

ROBINSON TALLIES 2ND SEC HONOR FOR 2018
Sophomore Mikayla Robinson earned her second Defensive Player of the Week honor of the season on Monday, Oct. 1, after the middle blocker averaged 2.12 blocks and 2.50 kills per set in wins at Alabama and at Georgia. She is the first Gamecock since Paige Wheeler in 2011 to earn defensive honors twice in a single season. Robinson leads the team with 0.92 blocks per set and a .308 hitting percentage.

SEPTEMBER TO REMEMBER
The Gamecocks finished the month of September with a perfect 9-0 record that included three road wins. The last team to go undefeated through the entire month of September was the 1983 squad under head coach Elain Mozingo, who went on to finish the season 34-4.

SOBER OCTOBER
The Gamecocks followed up with a 2-5 mark in October, adding to an spooky trend for the team. Over the last decade, South Carolina’s record for the month of October is just 23-62 (.271). The team’s best record during this stretch was a 4-5 mark during the 2014 campaign. The team has not won more than two matches in October since then.

MCLEAN BRINGS POSTSEASON EXPERIENCE TO SC
Britt McLean transferred to South Carolina after two seasons at Minnesota. She comes to the team after ending the 2017 on a high note with the Gophers, playing every set of their three NCAA tournament matches. In the opening round against North Dakota, McLean led the team with 13 kills and a .355 attack percentage in a sweep. In her two seasons at Minnesota, McLean played in nine matches.

HOME-COURT ADVANTAGE
The Gamecocks have made the Carolina Volleyball Center one of the toughest venues in the country over the last three seasons. Of the program’s top ten crowds all time in the CVC, nine have come in the last three years and three of the top five have come this season, including a program-record crowd of 3,458 at the Clemson match on Aug. 25. This season, the Gamecocks rank 27th nationally for cumulative and 29th for average attendance and are 10-1 in the CVC. On Nov. 4, the team won the 200th home match in CVC history when it took down Auburn, 3-1.

GAMECOCKS EARN WIN #800
South Carolina’s 3-0 sweep of Clemson on Aug. 25 was the 800th victory in the program’s history. Along the way, the team has 17 seasons with 20 wins or more and seven appearances in the NCAA tournament.

PHEISTER ROUNDS OUT GAMECOCK STAFF
Joining first-year head coach Tom Mendoza and fourth-year assistant coach Shonda Cole on the bench this fall will be Ethan Pheister, who spent the last three seasons as an assistant at LSU, working with the setters and helping coordinate the offense. The Tigers turned themselves around in 2017, going from nine wins in the previous season to 20 wins and an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament. Pheister had prior experience coaching in the SEC in 2012, helping Arkansas make the NCAA tournament.

ALL-TIME RECORDS

• South Carolina holds an 815-636 (.561) all-time record, dating back to 1973. The team’s 800th win of all time came on Aug. 25, 2018 against Clemson.
• The Gamecocks joined the SEC for volleyball in 1991, and have an all-time conference record of 192-268 (.418).
• In matches in the Carolina Volleyball Center, Carolina is 200-112 (.639) overall and 101-95 (.510) in SEC matches.
• Tom Mendoza became the program’s 13th head coach on Jan. 3, 2018. This is his third season overall as a head coach, with a career record of 65-24.