Oct. 1, 2006
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COLUMBIA, S.C. — The South Carolina volleyball team lost in five games to Alabama on Sunday in Columbia, S.C., by scores of 30-28, 32-30, 24-30, 24-30, 8-15. The Gamecocks saw their record dip to 10-7 and 3-3 in the Southeastern Conference, while the Crimson Tide improved to 9-6 and 4-2 in the league.
South Carolina led early in game one, 7-4, before Alabama went on an 11-4 run capped by a balling handling error from the Gamecocks to lead 15-11. The Crimson tide went on to lead by as many as six on three occasions, the last of which was at 21-15 following a kill by Brooks Webster. USC answered by winning seven of the next eight points to tie things up at 22. Still deadlocked at 27, the Gamecocks got a kill from Ivana Kujundzic and then an Alabama miscue on the next point put USC in the driver’s seat. Shonda Cole’s eighth kill of the contest gave Carolina the first game.
After a hitting error by the Gamecocks, South Carolina found itself trailing 25-21 in the second game. A 3-0 spurt by USC closed the margin to one, but the Crimson Tide responded with its own 3-0 run to go up 28-24. With Alabama having two chances to win the game at 29-27, South Carolina used kills from Cole and Marija Milosevic to keep the frame up for grabs. Alabama had another chance to win game two up 30-29, but Milosevic ripped another kill down the line to tie the score. After Webster misfired on an attack, USC setter Iris Santos managed a kill to give her team the two-point victory.
The Gamecocks were down a point, 14-13, in game three before Alabama steadily increased the advantage. With the Crimson Tide up 19-16, Milosevic served a ball out and Alabama went on to win the next four points before committing an attack error. Alabama held an eight-point lead, 28-20, before the Gamecocks scored three in a row to chop the deficit to five, but the Crimson received kills from Crystal Hudson and Bridget Fuentez to close out the stanza.
Alabama was cruising through game four, going up by as much as 13 with a 28-15 lead, but South Carolina did not go quietly. Cole slammed a kill to give Carolina a side out and then served the Gamecocks to eight straight points to make the score 28-24. The Crimson Tide advantage was too much to overcome, though, as Webster tallied two consecutive kills to send the match the distance.
South Carolina’s sluggish start in game five saw them trailing 8-3 when the teams changed benches. The Gamecocks slashed Alabama’s lead to 9-6 thanks to a hitting error, but Alabama came back to win the next two points. Cole’s final kill of the match made the score 12-8 before the Crimson Tide won three rallies in a row to escape with its first win in Columbia since Oct. 11, 1992. Coming into the match, South Carolina had won seven in a row at home in the series.
Cole recorded her sixth 30-kill match of the season with 31, and she added 15 digs for her fifth double-double in 2006. Milosevic reached double figures in kills with 15 to mark her eighth 10-plus kill effort of the year. Alexcis Thomson, Sarah Cline and Dinelia Concepcion were all in double figures for digs with 18, 10 and 10, respectively. Santos notched 59 assists, seven kills and six digs.
The Gamecocks hit .178 (74-39-197) for the match, while Alabama connected at a .288 figure (73-22-177). South Carolina was hitting .276 (39-15-87) through the first two games, but finished with a .100 mark (35-24-110) in the final three. Carolina’s 76 digs was two more than the Crimson Tide’s total, but Alabama had a 10-6 advantage in blocks.
Carolina next plays in Knoxville, Tenn., when it faces No. 17-rated Tennessee at 7 p.m. on Friday. The Gamecocks then head north to Lexington, Ky., to play Kentucky on Sunday at 1:30 p.m.
