Sept. 24, 2006
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FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — The South Carolina volleyball team fell 3-1 (23-30, 23-30, 30-28, 24-30) to Arkansas in Fayetteville, Ark., on Sunday to fall to 9-6 overall and 2-2 in the Southeastern Conference. The Lady Razorbacks upped their record on the year to 9-3 and moved to 2-2 in the league.
Arkansas led from the outset in game one, taking as much as a nine-point lead three different times. After the Lady’Backs built a 23-14 advantage, South Carolina won three straight points off a service error and a pair of kills by senior outside hitter Shonda Cole, who finished the frame with six. Arkansas answered with a 4-1 run to lead 27-18 before its setter Caira Daugherty used a dump to finish off the game.
South Carolina suffered a blow after a kill by Arkansas put the Lady Razorback ahead 10-6 in the first game. During the rally, senior setter Iris Santos went down with an ankle injury and was unable to return for the remainder of the match. Sophomore Petra Lorenzi assumed setting duties for the rest of the afternoon.
The Gamecocks dug themselves in an early hole in game two, committing four hitting errors in the first nine rallies to trail 7-2. Arkansas went ahead 15-6, its largest lead of the game, after recording its fifth assisted block of the stanza. South Carolina hung tough, closing the deficit to four on seven occasions, the last of which was at 27-23 after a double-touch by the Lady Razorbacks. Arkansas, though, tallied back-to-back kills and a block afterward to take the second game.
After USC worked its way to an 8-6 upper hand in the third game, Arkansas went on a 4-0 run to retake the lead. The Gamecocks responded by winning nine of the next 12 points, capped by a block assist from Cole and freshman middle blocker Ivana Kujundzic, to go up by a 17-13 score. With Carolina still leading by four at 24-20, Arkansas won five of the next six rallies to deadlock the game, 25-25. Still tied 26-all, Gamecock sophomore outside hitter Marija Milosevic came up with three kills, the last of which secured the two-point win for USC.
South Carolina was down 10-7 after an attack by Cole missed the sideline, but the Gamecocks managed to win the next four points to take the lead. The Lady’Backs went on to build an 18-13 advantage, but Carolina bounced back and won four straight points behind two kills from Cole and one by Milosevic to close the margin to one. USC was still down one at 23-22 when Arkansas won five in a row to take a six-point lead that the Gamecocks could not overcome.
Cole had her fourth double-double of the season with 20 kills and 12 digs, and Milosevic had a season-high 23 kills to mark her sixth double-figure match in 2006. Senior libero Alexcis Thomson set a career-high with 26 digs. Lorenzi supplied a season-high 49 assists while adding six digs.
South Carolina hit .091 (54-39-165) for the match, compared to .222 (63-25-171) for Arkansas. The Gamecocks out-dug the Lady’Backs 71-59, while Arkansas’ 20 blocks was eight more than USC’s total.
The Gamecocks next play at Georgia on Wednesday at 7 p.m. USC returns home the following Sunday to face the Alabama Crimson Tide at 1:30 p.m. in the Volleyball Competition Facility.
