Oct. 4, 2002
FAYETTEVILLE, ARK. – – South Carolina volleyball improved to 11-3 and 4-0 in the SEC as the Gamecocks defeated the Arkansas Lady Razorbacks 3-1. Niece Curry and Berna Dwyer led the team with 17 kills each. Curry also led the team in hitting as she recorded a .432 percentage. Senior Cally Plummer recorded six aces to become South Carolina’s all-time leader in career aces with 216. Game scores for the match were 27-30, 31-29, 33-31, 30-22. The win snapped a two-match losing streak to the Lady ‘Backs for the Gamecocks. Arkansas falls to 11-4, 2-1 in the SEC.
“That was great. We overcame huge adversities in this match and that was big for us,” said head coach Kim Christopher. “After game one, Niece and Berna stepped it up for us. They made critical plays in game two. We ran a faster offense and that was what we needed to do. This was a good win.”
The Gamecocks suffered only their third game one loss of the season, as the Lady ‘Backs posted a 30-27 win to go up 1-0 in the match. Both teams recorded 16 kills but Arkansas out hit Carolina .250 to .121. USC jumped out to a 7-2 lead before the Lady ‘Backs went on a 6-0 run to grab its first lead of the game. From there, the game would be neck and neck and Arkansas eventually pulled off the three-point win.
Down 26-28 in game two, the Gamecocks answered back and went on a 5-1 run to claim the 31-29 victory and to tie the match 1-1. At the end of game two, Curry led the match with 11 kills. For game two, Curry hit .700 with seven kills, zero errors in 10 attempts.
Tied 29-29 in game three, a controversial service error by Arkansas gave South Carolina the one point lead. However, the game was tied two more times before the Gamecocks were able to claw out the 33-31 victory and go ahead 2-0 in the match. Plummer recorded her fifth and sixth aces of the match in game three to become Carolina’s all-time leader in aces.
South Carolina controlled game four as they jumped out to a 9-2 lead and never lost it. In game four, USC held the Lady ‘Backs to their lowest hitting percentage of the game, .095. South Carolina managed seven errors, their lowest of the match.
The Gamecocks now travel to Baton Rouge to face the LSU Tigers on Sunday. The match is scheduled for a 2:30 (ET) start.
