Gamecocks Ground Owls in Home Opener
COLUMBIA, S.C. – After a weekend on the road to open the season, South Carolina volleyball (3-1) opened a seven-game home stand with a three-set win against Temple (3-2) Friday night. Graduate student Riley Whiteside led the Gamecocks offense with 15 kills and freshman Victoria Harris anchored the defense with 15 digs.
1st SET: After quick back-and-forth play to start the game, South Carolina broke away by capitalizing off Temple errors and playing strong defense. With the Gamecocks up 7-6, the pace for the reminder of the game was set as its defense settled in. Sophomore Tireh Smith and senior Oby Anadi put down back-to-back blocks to put an exclamation point on a 4-0 run to make it 13-8, part of a total of five blocks in the set for the defense. The Owls finished the set with 10 attack errors in total, compared to just three for the Gamecocks. The efficient offense kept the home side in front the rest of the way in a 25-17 victory.
2nd SET: The second set remained close throughout the start, but similar to the first set, Temple’s offensive errors put it in a hole in another 25-17 score. After allowing the first two points of the set to the Owls, South Carolina used tough service behind the line and another strong defensive effort to take the lead back early and keep it the rest of the way. The team finished with three service aces – two from junior Sarah Jordan – and leaned on five more kills from Whitesides to power the offense. After three blocks from Smith led the defense in set one, graduate student Ellie Ruprich led the way with two solo blocks. Her second stuff of the set forced a Temple timeout after extending the team’s lead to 18-12, the Owls would get no close than four points the rest of the set.
3rd SET: The Owls returned to the court in the third set determined to extend the match, opening on a 4-0 scoring run to force a quick timeout from South Carolina. Out of the break, the Gamecocks answered with back-to-back points and soon regained the lead after a service error by Temple, the first of four it would have in the set. Whiteside clinched her second double-double in as many games after posting a game-high six kills in the third set and adding two digs to push her to 10 for the night. Her 15th and final kill clinched the set and match, a 25-16 final score.
NOTABLE
- Friday night marked 28 years to the day since the Gamecocks played their first game in the Carolina Volleyball Center. On Sept. 6, 1996, future South Carolina Hall of Fame members Ashley Edlund and Heather Larking lifted the team to a 3-0 sweep of Eastern Kentucky.
- Ellie Ruprich finished with three solo blocks in the win, including two in the second set alone. That gives the fifth-year grad student 100 career solo blocks, making her the fifth Gamecock in the program’s 51-year history to reach the milestone. The last woman to do so for South Carolina was Amy Collinsworth in 1993.
- Along with her 15th career double-double, Whitesides also moved up to 10th for career sets played (394) and 15th for career digs (738) in the program’s rally-scoring era.
- The Gamecocks dropped in a season-best eight service aces, with three apiece from Whitesides and Sarah Jordan and two from Elizabeth McElveen. The totals matched career highs for Jordan and McElveen.
- The team played 15 of its 16 available players in the match; sophomore middle Anna Wilson recorded her first kill as a Gamecock in the third set.
- Temple’s .050 team hitting percentage for the night was the lowest allowed by South Carolina since VCU on Sept. 15, 2023 (.021). The Gamecocks committed 11 total attack errors compared to 24 for the Owls.
QUOTABLE: TOM MENDOZA
On the team’s efforts Friday night
“It was great to be back playing at the Carolina Volleyball Center in front of a great crowd. I felt our team did a good job matching when Temple would get on a run and our service kept decent pressure on their passers. We had some stretches of rhythm offensively but it’s an area we can perform a little more consistently. Overall, I liked our energy and focus to take all three sets and am excited about where we are at as a group four matches into the season.”
UP NEXT: The Gamecocks host North Carolina on Sunday at 2 p.m. The Tar Heels will open their weekend with a neutral match against Temple on Saturday afternoon before returning to cap the weekend against South Carolina. North Carolina makes its first trip to the Carolina Volleyball Center in 20 years and holds a 3-0 record after opening the season at home last weekend.
