Volleyball Faces Road Test at Texas A&M

COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS – Fresh off a 2-0 weekend, the South Carolina volleyball team will hit the road looking for an important win Friday night. The Gamecocks will take on Texas A&M (13-12, 6-7 SEC) Friday at 6 p.m. ET, looking for their first-ever win in College Station. The match will air on the SEC Network+ online.

GAMECOCKS REMAIN IN RPI TOP 30, RECEIVE VOTES IN AVCA TOP 25
South Carolina moved up to No. 25 in the sixth RPI ranking of the season, released by the NCAA on Monday afternoon. The Gamecocks have a 9-6 record against team’s currently ranked in the top 100 of the RPI, with two wins over top 50 teams. South Carolina ended the 2017 season ranked 156th in the RPI standings. The team also received 26 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 TEXAS A&M
The Aggies are looking to rebound after a recent slump, where the team dropped seven of the last ten matches. Texas A&M has already surpassed its win total from last year under new head coach Laura Kuhn, and are looking to return to .500 in SEC play with a win Friday night. The offense is spearheaded by junior standout Hollann Hans, who is averaging more than a full kill per set since the previous meeting between the two sides, ranking 24th nationally with 4.36 and is also ninth in the country for aces per set (0.48). She also passed 1,000 career kills in the team’s most recent match, a loss at No. 25 Tennessee. Camille Connor quarterbacks the offense with 10.09 assists, 2.04 digs and 1.68 kills per set, and has five hitters averaging multiple kills per set. The defensive numbers are equally distributed as well, with libero Amy Houser ranked eighth in the SEC for digs and four other passers averaging two or more digs per set. 

LAST TIME VS. THE AGGIES…
The Gamecocks won for just the second time in 12 meetings when they took down Texas A&M at home on Oct. 7. The Aggies were out-hit .272 to .187 and committed 19 service errors, the most by any Gamecock opponent this season. Offensively, Mikayla Shields led the team with 13 kills and a pair of aces, and the Gamecocks as a group hit .400 over the final two sets to earn the win. Defensively, 19 digs for Aubrey Ezell and four blocks from Claire Edwards led the way.

WEEK 7 NOTABLES (MISSOURI, AUBURN)

• The team’s last win over a top-25-ranked team was also Missouri, when the Tigers were ranked 21st but dropped a 3-1 decision in the Carolina Volleyball Center on Nov. 13, 2016. Previous to that, it was all the way back to 2006, when the team defeated No. 6 Florida at home.
• The Gamecocks have three wins in the all-time series, all three coming at home and over the last four meetings.
• Mikayla Robinson’s .478 hitting percentage vs. Missouri was the team’s highest individual rate in SEC play this season, and is the sixth-highest percentage for a five-set match in the team’s rally-scoring era. Her 12 kills are the most for the sophomore in SEC play this season, and second-most overall.
• Mikayla Shields’ 19 kills against Missouri are the most by a Gamecock this season. The team also saw Robinson (12), McLean (11) and Claire Edwards (10) reach double figures in kills.
• Shields also had 10 digs, marking her 22nd career double-double. That moves her into the program’s all-time top 15. The junior has six double-doubles this season, seventh-most in the SEC.
• Senior Courtney Furlong earned her first start of the season, and responded with six kills with a .286 hitting percentage, and a pair of aces.
• Trailing 2-1 on Friday night, the Gamecock offense went on a tear in the final two sets to pull off the win. In the fourth and fifth sets combined, the team hit .407 and committed just four total attack errors.
• The win Sunday snapped Auburn’s five-game win streak on South Carolina’s home court.
• Now 8-5 in conference play, the Gamecocks have the most SEC wins since 2008, when that group went 12-8.
• The Gamecocks are now 10-1 at home this season, the eighth year with double-digit wins in team’s 23 seasons competing in the Carolina Volleyball Center. The six SEC home wins are the most since 2008.
• Mikayla Shields ended the weekend with a .314 hitting percentage and 32 kills over nine sets. Sunday, she was presented with a commemorative game ball to recognize her 1,000th career kill. Set back on Oct. 24, she is one of 15 Gamecocks to ever reach 1,000 kills.
• Aubrey Ezell moved into third for career digs in the program’s all-time history. She now stands at 1,337 for her career, passing Hannah Lawing (previously 3rd; 2007-10) and Jodi Thompson (previously 4th; 1991-94).
• With her ace Sunday, Ezell also tied Florida’s Carli Snyder’s 2017 total of 57 for most service aces by any SEC student-athlete over the last decade.
• With 10 kills Sunday, Mikayla Robinson recorded double-digit kills for the first time this season. For the weekend, the sophomore middle hit .429 with 22 total kills. Robinson also moved into the top ten for most career total blocks in the rally-scoring era, now with 198.
• The South Carolina offense was deadly efficient on Sunday, committing just eight unforced attack errors over the four sets. Auburn would commit 17 on the other side of the net. The Gamecocks’ .288 hitting percentage as a team was its third highest in SEC play this season, and sixth highest overall.

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 15 of the team’s 23 matches this season, and ranks third in the program’s all-time history for her career with 194. She currently leads the SEC and ranks second nationally with 0.68 aces/set, and is the NCAA’s active career leader. Her 57 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 57 aces currently ranks eighth overall. With one more ace, she’d match Tammy Correll’s 1988 total, good for seventh place.

Among SEC rivals, only three other individuals have reached 50 aces in a single season over the last decade. Only Florida’s Carli Snyder (57, 2017) can match Ezell’s current total. For her career, Ezell has three of the top 10 single-season totals in the SEC over the last 10 seasons.

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. In 2017, the Panthers were in rare company as a mid-major program earning an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament. In the postseason, Mendoza was named the Big South’s and AVCA Southeast Region’s Coach of the Year. Already this season, South Carolina has surpassed its overall win total from 2017, and have the most SEC wins since 2008.

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 has to face twice this season is 47-27 (.627), compared to a 27-49 (.409) record for the six teams the Gamecocks face just once. For comparison, Florida’s only home-and-away series against a top-six team is South Carolina, Kentucky and Missouri have three top-six teams in a season series, Texas A&M has two, and Tennessee faces four of the top six in a season series.

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 the era, and she currently ranks fifth in the SEC with 9.76 assists per set this season.

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 (4.41 kills per set, .190 hitting percentage, .357 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). Over the weekend, the team also worked senior Courtney Furlong into the starting lineup, and she responded with 15 kills over the two wins.

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 114 matches played. Currently, her 420 total sets ranks 3rd in the rally-scoring era and 113 matches rank eighth, but no other player has played as many consecutively.

WHEN THE GAMECOCKS WIN…

• The team is out-hitting the opposition .264 to .180, and are limiting opponents to 10.89 kills per set.
• Serving numbers are positive, with an average of 1.75 aces per set and just 1.64 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 4.25 kills per set, a .325 hitting percentage and a .570 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 2.74 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 30th nationally for cumulative and 28th 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 season 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 814-636 (.562) 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 191-268 (.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 64-24.