Gamecocks Tame Cougars in Tuesday Night Sweep

COLUMBIA, S.C. – A well-balanced South Carolina offense would prove too much for the College of Charleston on Tuesday night, the Gamecocks out-hit the Cougars .297 to .082 in a three-set sweep. The victory runs South Carolina’s record to 5-1 for the season, with junior Alayna Johnson hitting .400 with 14 kills to lead the offense and a Gamecock block that put down a season-best 11 denials over the three sets.

1st SET: South Carolina rolled to a decisive 25-12 win in set one, limiting Charleston to just eight kills total while hitting .393 on offense. The Cougars would limit the contributions of a red-hot Riley Whitesides, but four other Gamecocks would respond with two or more kills apiece, led by four from Johnson. While she wasn’t able to find her rhythm on the attack in set one, Whitesides still added two blocks, two service aces and five digs to keep the Gamecocks humming in a wire-to-wire victory.

2nd SET: Both sides would be out of sync in set two, but the Gamecocks were able to get right late in a 25-21 win and a 2-0 set lead. Charleston’s blockers would record four blocks and the Carolina offense would add in five more unforced errors on the attack to finish with a game-low .074 hitting percentage. The Gamecock defense maintained its hold on the Cougars, though, also recording four blocks and forcing almost as many errors (8) as kills (9) to the visitors. Oby Anadi had her best set offensively when the team needed her most, cashing in on four kills off just five swings. Back-to-back blocks from Tireh Smith and Ellie Ruprich pushed it to an eight-point lead at 18-10, and after surviving a stretch of errors that cut the score back to 19-17, Carolina would pull away again with Anadi sealing the win on a kill.

3rd SET: The two offenses got right for set three, leading to a back-and-forth affair that featured 16 ties and four lead changes before the Gamecocks capped the match with a 25-20 win. Neither team led by more than one point until Charleston took a 16-14 lead, but South Carolina responded with a 7-2 run from that moment on and never gave the lead back. The Gamecock defense had three blocks in that game-changing run, while the offense leaned on Johnson to bring them home. The junior pin did just that, leading the team to a game-high 17 kills with seven of her own.

NOTABLE

• This is the fourth win streak of five or more games in head coach Tom Mendoza’s tenure.
• Tireh Smith continued to show her growth, putting away a career-high nine kills off just 16 attacks on Tuesday night.
• Alayna Johnson led the team in kills with 14, one off her season high. She enjoyed her most efficient game of the season, though, hitting .400 over 25 attacks while also adding nine digs.
• The defense’s 11 total blocks are a season high, four different players finished with three or more blocks, led by six from Ellie Ruprich.
• Oby Anadi remains locked-in, Tuesday was her second consecutive game with a hitting percentage over .700 and seven or more kills. In the team’s first three home games of 2024, the senior middle has 20 kills and a .556 hitting percentage over nine sets.
• Two streaks were broken on Tuesday; for the first time this season, Riley Whitesides did not lead the team in kills and libero Victoria Harris did not lead the team in digs.
• Sarah Jordan had the offense working, passing out 35 assists over the three sets to go with a team-high 10 digs.
• While Whitesides was held to just eight kills, she did drop in a pair of service aces in the first set. That moves her to 77 for her career, up to 10^th in program history for the rally-scoring era (since 2001).
• The team’s serve reception defense continued a steady climb in performance, allowing just one service ace to the Cougars. Since Kansas recorded seven aces in the season opener, the Gamecocks have allowed just nine total aces in the five matches since (16 sets).

QUOTABLE: TOM MENDOZA
On how the offense handled the Charleston defense focusing on stopping Riley Whitesides
“We have a ton of confidence in Riley and obviously with how effective she’s been, she’s going to get more and more attention. It’s good for us to see that and prep for it and it’s a good lesson to the rest of the team that we need people stepping up and I think we have a lot of people capable of it. Tireh looked really in rhythm for large portions, same thing for Oby and Alayna as well. We know we’re capable of it, and hopefully this helps them. Riley was able to contribute in other ways and get some really big kills, but they did a good job and put a lot of attention on her to slow on her down.”

UP NEXT: Friday begins a three-day tournament in the Carolina Volleyball Center, the Gamecocks will play Stetson at 1 p.m. and Florida International at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 13. After a Saturday off, the team finishes the weekend against Wake Forest at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 15.