Women's Volleyball . September 12, 2024

Volleyball Welcomes Three Teams for Weekend of Games

COLUMBIA, S.C. – A stretch of five home games in seven days continues for South Carolina volleyball when the Gamecocks (5-1) host a three-day tournament in the Carolina Volleyball Center Sept. 13-15. The team begins with a Friday doubleheader, facing Stetson and FIU at 1 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., respectively. After a pair of neutral matches on Saturday, the weekend closes with Carolina hosting Wake Forest at 2 p.m.

For fans attending home matches this weekend and all season long at the Carolina Volleyball Center (CVC), parking is available in the lot directly in front of Thirsty Fellow restaurant (behind 650 Lincoln Dorms). It is not advised that any parking occur in the lot facing Assembly Street as tickets could be issued. There is also a lot available off Park Street next to the Strom Thurmond Fitness Center as well as the Horizon Garage off Assembly Street.

The volleyball program now has a specific supporter group that is aimed at their most loyal fans. The funds generated through the Volleyball VIP Club will go directly to the program to support student-athletes. In addition to other benefits, membership includes free admission to all regular season home matches. Tickets can be purchased on-site or through THIS LINK. Single-game tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for youth 17 and under, and $3 for groups of 15 or more (with pre-purchase). The physical address for the CVC is 1051 Blossom Street, Columbia, S.C. 29201. The student entrance will be the doors facing the Blossom and Assembly Street intersection, for general admission and VIP ticket holders, the entrance is off Park Street.

For continued updates on the team, follow Gamecockvolley on Twitter and GamecockVB on Instagram.

SCOUTING THE HATTERS
Stetson enters the weekend coming off a victory against UNC-Wilmington, defeating the Seahawks in straight sets. The Hatters are 3-2 as they navigate through non-conference play with their other wins coming off a sweep against Manhattan and a 3-2 win over Bethune-Cookman. Offensively, the team is led by graduate student Anabelle Standish, who leads the team and Atlantic Sun Conference in kills (74). A strong defensive team, the Hatters rank 13th nationally in digs per set (17.82) and 48th in blocks per set (2.59). Stetson’s defense is led by freshman middle blocker Ayala Halfon and senior libero Haruka Sugimoto. Sugimoto leads the ASUN in digs per set (4.94) with Halfon second in the conference in blocks per set (1.44). The defense has held opponents to a .159 hit percentage.

SCOUTING THE PANTHERS
FIU is coming off its only victory of its season so far in a come-from-behind five-set match against Davidson. The Panthers currently sit at 1-6, getting swept in five of their six opening matches. After falling in the Conference USA semifinal last year, the Panthers were predicted to finish sixth this year. Freshman outside hitter, Jillian Huckabey, leads the team in almost all offensive statistics with a conference-leading 88 kills and averages 3.67 kills per set. The team is allowing a .285 opponent hitting percentage through seven matches, a mark that ranks 327th nationally. Junior libero Mandi Morika serves as a veteran presence on the defense, leading the team with 98 digs, with graduate transfer Cameryn Jones taking the charge on blocks with 16.

SCOUTING THE DEACONS
Wake Forest enters the tournament match coming off a five-set loss to Illinois. The Deacons sit at 3-3 with wins over Toldeo, Navy and Hofstra. Picked 11th in this year’s Atlantic Coast Conference preseason coaches poll, Wake Forest comes off a season with eight conference wins in a stacked ACC. Standout junior libero Emma Farrell collected two ACC Defensive Player of the Week honors last season and continues to lead the team in digs (90). Graduate student middle blocker Tina Grkovic assists on defense leading the team in blocks per set (1.25) and total blocks (30). Wake Forest is leading defensively by holding its opponents to a .165 hitting percentage and keep opponents off-balance with 43 total services aces on the season, led by junior setter Rian Baker with 14. Offensively, the Demon Deacons are hitting just .171, averaging 11.04 kills per set through six games, ranking second to last in the ACC in both categories.

WEEK TWO (TEMPLE/NORTH CAROLINA) NOTABLES

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 over Temple, including two in the second set alone. That gave 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 in the Temple win, 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 against the Owls, 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 against Temple; 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 attack errors compared to 24 for the Owls.
Against North Carolina, Oby Anadi was an efficient attacker over all three sets, putting away a season-best eight kills on just 11 attempts without a single error. Her .727 hitting percentage is the highest by any Gamecock with 6+ kills in a match this season and is a career high for the senior middle.
Ellie Ruprich capped a strong weekend defensively, adding five blocks (two solo) over the three sets Sunday vs. UNC. She finished the weekend with nine blocks, five of them solo stuffs.
After ending set one with four attacking errors, Riley Whitesides went for nine kills and just two more errors over sets two and three against the Tar Heels. She finished the weekend hitting .313 with 4.67 kills and 2.83 digs per set. Whitesides passed Caryn Case (1988-91) for 14th in career kills for the program’s all-time history. She now has 1,086.
Sunday was North Carolina’s first time playing the Gamecocks in Columbia since 2004. The two teams have only played nine times since 1990, with South Carolina securing the second win over the last five meetings.

CHARLESTON MATCH NOTABLES

The win over the Cougars was the 250th win in the 28-year history of the Carolina Volleyball Center. The Gamecocks have an all-time win percentage of .647 in the friendly confines of the CVC.
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 10th in program history for the rally-scoring era (since 2001).

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.”

WELL RECEIVED
The team’s serve reception defense continued a steady climb in performance, allowing just one service ace to the College of Charleston on Sept. 10. Since Kansas recorded seven aces in the season opener, the Gamecocks have allowed just nine total aces in the five matches since (16 sets). The team has benefitted from a consistent rotation of passers and each have performed admirably. Left side pins Riley Whitesides (115 receptions) and Alayna Johnson (108) each have accounted for 1/3 of the team’s total receptions to date, with the two being aced just nine times in 223 total serves. For her career, Whitesides has the second-most serve receptions in the program’s rally-scoring era – with 2,280 – and has a career reception percentage of .948.

Defensive specialists Elizabeth McElveen (45) and Victoria Harris (45) account for the next-closest totals this fall, and the pair have allowed just three aces in 90 receptions.

The passing efficiency has been a boon to the offense and improves on an uncharactistic 2023 season. The Gamecocks allowed 1.58 aces per set to opponents last fall, by far the most allowed in head coach Tom Mendoza’s tenure (since 2018).

DOUBLE TROUBLE
Few teams in the country can match the production and consistency of South Carolina’s middle blockers Oby Anadi and Ellie Ruprich. The two entered 2024 with over 700 combined blocks. Last fall, they became the first pair of Gamecocks to record 100+ total blocks in back-to-back seasons since 1995 (Heather Larkin and DeeDee Fortman) and 1996 (Larkin and Lori Drost). Going back to the earliest available statistics (1983), the program had never seen the same two individuals surpass 100 blocks in successive seasons.

SETTING THE SCENE
The team carries three setters on the roster for 2024, bringing back junior Kimmie Thompson and sophomore Sydney Floyd and adding in Towson transfer Sarah Jordan, but the team did lose Claire Wilson to a medical retirement. Jordan had success and experience running both a single-setter and two-setter offense during her career at Towson, and played almost the entire first weekend as the lone setter for Carolina. Through two weeks, Jordan is averaging over 10 assists per set. The Gamecocks are looking to improve the offense’s connection after back-to-back seasons flirting with a .200 team hitting percentage – the lowest two so far under head coach Tom Mendoza. Entering the weeked, the team has a .249 hit percentage.

FIVE FACES IN NEW PLACES
The Gamecocks added five to the roster for the fall season. Each of the five have a different background to bring to a squad featuring 11 returners…

Jolie Cranford (Highlands Ranch, Colo.) joins the indoor team after two standout seasons with Gamecock beach volleyball. She will continue to play beach in the spring. She enters her junior season as the beach program’s winningest player on the active roster, holding a career mark of 41-21. Her .661 win percentage through two seasons currently ranks seventh in program history for Gamecocks with at least 50 career starts.
Maggie Elliott (Mount Pleasant, S.C.) is the third crossover athlete on the roster, joining Riley Whitesides and Jolie Cranford on the beach volleyball team. She earned four letters at Lucy Garrett Beckham high school, playing for her mother, Adria, who played collegiate volleyball at Florida State. Her father also has a strong athletic background, competing in beach volleyball on the AVP Pro Tour for 16 years and also working as a collegiate beach coach. Maggie led her high school team in kills for all four years of high school, surpassing 1,000 in her career.
Victoria Harris (Columbia, S.C.) will be a freshman this fall, but enrolled early with the Gamecocks and spent the spring semester training and rehabbing a high school injury. She totaled over 1,300 digs and over 1,400 service receptions at Cardinal Newman high school, leading the team to two South Carolina state championships.
Sarah Jordan (Leesburg, Va. / Towson) transferred to the Gamecocks after two seasons at Towson, playing in 56 total matches as the team’s setter. She finished her time as a Tiger with over 1500 assists and 400 digs, also adding 45 service aces behind the line. Jordan led the Tigers in assists with 973 and averaged 9.18 assists per set as a sophomore in 2023, also recording career highs in digs and kills.
Anna Wilson (Burlington, Ontario, Canada / High Point) transferred after two seasons at High Point; after redshirting as a true freshman, she played in 15 matches in 2023. Her top performance with the Panthers came in the Big South conference tournament title match, where she hit .412 with seven kills against Winthrop on Nov. 19, 2023.

A VICTORIOUS RETURN
She might have played high school volleyball just down the road from the Carolina Volleyball Center, but freshman Victoria Harris has taken the long way to collegiate volleyball. A standout libero at Cardinal Newman School, about 10 miles to the northeast of downtown Columbia, Harris had to overcome two serious injuries to make it to the next phase of her volleyball career.

In September 2022, she fractured her hip during a game after a teammate landed on her. She recovered in time to play the following season, but endured another setback when she tore her ACL in August of 2023. She had surgery on her knee in October and then worked towards graduating early from high school and enrolling at South Carolina for the spring semester.

She was finally cleared for full action at the end of July and immediately jumped into an important role for the Gamecocks. In week one, Harris played all three games as the team’s libero and averaged 4.20 digs per set. Her 23 digs in the weekend finale at Duke led the defense and is the most by a Gamecock freshman since Taylr McNeil in 2014 (23 vs. Furman). If Harris retains the role for the majority of 2024, she would join current senior Morgan Carter as the only Gamecocks to play libero as true freshmen since the position was first introduced in college volleyball in 2002.

ANADI READY TO PEAK IN SENIOR SEASON
Senior middle Oby Anadi made herself known as a blocker over her first season and a half in the lineup but she still was working her way into the team’s offensive game plan. The 2023 season proved that growth, as she set career highs on offense AND defense. Anadi totaled 119 kills over her first two seasons (41 matches), but finished with 146 over 27 matches. On defense, she had a personal-best 129 total blocks last fall and became the first Gamecock since Belita Salters in 2007 to have a hand in 50 percent or more of the team’s total blocks. Anadi’s 281 total blocks currently ranks eighth for most in the rally scoring era. Through the first six games in 2024, Anadi is hitting a team-high .439 with 37 kills, third-most on the team.

TRYING TO PIN DOWN THE OFFENSE
The team graduated Kiune Fletcher, its top offensive producer from 2023, and will look ahead to a mix of veterans and rising young talent to find new production on the left and right pins this fall. Riley Whitesides missed most of the final month of last season due to injury but enters her fifth year already with 1,000 career kills. Joining her on the left pin is rising junior Alayna Johnson, who also has battled injuries in the past but had a career year in 2023 and is credited by the coaching staff as one of the strongest performers during the spring training season.

On the right, Fletcher put together one of the best seasons by an opposite in the program’s modern era, hitting .266 with 245 total kills. The team will look to Campbell Paris or Tireh Smith to play the crucial two-way role of stout defender and reliable offensive option on the right; Paris had 188 kills over 23 games in her 2023 freshman season, she also trains on the left pin. Smith missed the first half of last fall with a broken hand, but made it on the court for eight matches and has proven to be a solid blocker. She has earned the majority of the playing time on the right through the team’s win over Charleston on Tuesday night, she is averaging 1.84 kills and 0.68 blocks per set.

SAVING THE BEST FOR LAST
An electric offensive performance carried South Carolina to a three-set sweep of eighth-ranked Tennessee in the 2023 regular season finale. The Gamecocks hit .488 as a team, the highest of any SEC team during conference play last fall, to overpower the Volunteers. Alayna Johnson led the way with a career-high 17 kills, hitting .464 along the way.

The victory marked the sixth season in a row where South Carolina defeated a ranked opponent, extending the longest streak since joining the SEC in 1991. Tennessee is the third top-10-ranked team beaten during the streak, joining No. 5 Kentucky in 2021 and No. 4 Florida in 2020.

The Gamecocks enter 2024 with nine wins over ranked opponents since head coach Tom Mendoza was hired in 2018. The program had just nine ranked wins total in the 27 seasons prior to his arrival (1991-2017).

WHITESIDES CARRIES OCTOBER MOMENTUM INTO 2024
The loss of senior Riley Whitesides to injury late last season came at an inopportune time for the Gamecocks, as the veteran pin was in the midst of one of the best stretches of her career during the month of October.

The Greenville native finished with more kills (103), digs (74) and service aces (8) in eight October matches than in any of the previous three seasons of her career. In the team’s six games against ranked opponents when she was healthy, Whitesides averaged 3.36 kills per set and her 84 total kills were 27 more than anyone else on the team. The injury forced her out of two games completely, and even after she was cleared to play she was limited to a back-row-only role in the final three games of the season, where she was unable to be part of the offense.

A healthy Whitesides enjoyed a breakout season with the beach volleyball team in the spring semester, moving up to the top pairing by the end of the season and finishing with a 20-15 overall record. Of her 20 wins, nine came on court one, 10 on court two and five came against nationally ranked opponents.

Two weeks into the 2024 indoor season and she is not slowing down just yet. Through six matches, Whitesides is hitting .254 and averaging 4.21 kills per set, highlighted by a career-high 23 kills over four sets against Duke on Sept. 1.

GETTING THE SAND OUT OF THEIR SHOES
The indoor team has three indoor-to-beach crossover athletes on the roster this fall, with each Gamecock bringing a different background. The three crossovers are the most under head coach Tom Mendoza and are the most on a roster since the 2014 season.

Leading the way is Riley Whitesides, who moved from an indoor-only role to beach as her spring sport during the 2022-23 school year and broke out last season on the sand. She moved up to the top court by the end of the season and finished with a 20-15 overall record.

Jolie Cranford moves from a beach-only career to an indoor role, staying true to her roots. Cranford, a native of Colorado, played indoor exclusively until late in her high school career when the COVID-19 pandemic pushed her athletic pursuits outdoors. Now two seasons into her beach career, she enters 2023-24 as the team’s winningest player on the active roster, holding a career mark of 41-21 through two seasons.

The final crossover athlete is Maggie Elliott. Originally committed to Florida State as both an indoor and beach athlete, the Charleston native opted to stay in-state for her collegiate career. As an indoor volleyball athlete, she played for her mother, Adria, and led her high school team in kills for all four years on the varsity roster.

GAMECOCK NATION PACKS THE GYM
Few venues feature the atmosphere of the Carolina Volleyball Center, and Gamecock fans came out in record-setting numbers last fall. The team had more games with 2,000 or more fans in 2023 (5) than in the previous 49 seasons of volleyball at South Carolina combined (3) and six of the top-10 most-attended matches in program history came in the team’s first eight home games. In the team’s first two home games of 2024, the combined crowd was 3,769, the average of 1,885 fans per game ranks 22nd nationally.

The Gamecocks ranked 44th nationally for total attendance (23,114) and 43rd in average attendance (1,651 per game) in 2023, despite having the smallest capacity gym of any team ranked ahead of it. The team broke the single-season home attendance record in 2023, welcoming in 23,114 fans, surpassing the previous record of 18,797, set during the 2018 season. Dating back to 2014, the Gamecock volleyball program is averaging at least 1,000 fans per game every season.

RUPRICH REACHES ANOTHER MAJOR MILESTONE
Graduate student Ellie Ruprich became just the eighth woman in program history to reach 400 career blocks last fall, she is just the third woman in the modern scoring era (since 2001) to reach 400 career blocks, joining Darian Dozier (2012-15) and Mikayla Robinson (2017-21).

Among current active players, Ruprich entered 2024 ranked second across all NCAA divisions for solo blocks and 13th in total blocks. The Beverly Hills, Michigan native is still in the hunt of some rarely contested records. In the rally scoring record book, Ruprich surpassed Mikayla Robinson’s solo blocks record and reached 100 for her career in the win over Temple on Sept. 6. She is the fifth Gamecock in the program’s 51-year history to reach 100 solo blocks, the last woman to do so for South Carolina was Amy Collinsworth in 1993. In the all-time record book, she ranks fifth for solo blocks, sixth in block assists and fourth in total blocks.

HIGHS AND LOWS AT THE NET
South Carolina’s defensive calling card remains at the net, as the Gamecocks finished fourth in the SEC with an average of 2.46 blocks per set last fall. For as good as the Gamecock block was, however, opponents were better. South Carolina opponents averaged 2.75 blocks per set when facing the Gamecocks, far and away the most in the SEC. The team allowed 10 or more blocks in 16 of its 27 games overall and nine of 18 conference games. The 2.75 blocks per set against them is the the highest single-season average for Gamecock opponents in the rally-scoring era (since 2001).

VOLLEYBALL FINALIZES STAFF FOR FALL
Head coach Tom Mendoza promoted Ethan Pheister to Associate Head Coach and hired Jimmy Kim as the team’s Technical Coordinator. Pheister is also preparing for his seventh season at South Carolina, serving predominantly as the team’s defensive coordinator. In his time with the Gamecocks, he has developed the team’s middle blockers into one of the best positional groups in the Southeastern Conference. In the modern scoring era (since 2001), he has trained four of the 11 student-athletes who have totaled 250 or more blocks, highlighted by Mikayla Robinson (2017-21) and Ellie Ruprich (2020-Present). The duo rank third and fifth, respectively, for total blocks in the program’s 50-year history. As a team, the Gamecocks have consistently ended the season in the top three of the SEC and top 50 nationally for average blocks per set during Pheister’s tenure.

Kim comes to South Carolina from UC Irvine. He began working with the UCI women’s volleyball program in 2022 as its technical coordinator, and added the same duties with the Anteater’s men’s program the following year. This summer, Kim also added Technical Coordinator duties for USA Volleyball, working with the national team during its run in the Volleyball Nations League.

STATUS QUO IN THE CLASSROOM
The program improved its streak to 15 seasons in a row earning the AVCA’s Team Academic Award, announced on July 17. The Gamecocks have put 10 or more individuals on the SEC’s Fall Academic Honor Roll for eight seasons in a row and placed 16 members on either the Fall or First-Year Academic Honor Rolls in the 2023-24 school year. This comes despite an ambitious list of majors that spans the world-renowned business school, sports science fields and education.

MENDOZA’S TRENDING TOPICS
In Head Coach Tom Mendoza’s tenure with the team…

Home is where the heart is. The Gamecocks are 60-25 (.706) at the Carolina Volleyball Center in Mendoza’s seven seasons.
September is the team’s best month, combining for a 37-16 mark. The highlight came in 2018 with a perfect 9-0 record in September, the first Gamecock squad since 1983 to do so.
The team is 78-13 when winning the first set, 17-63 when losing it.
In five-set matches, the team holds an 24-14 record. In the three years prior to his arrival, the Gamecocks were just 7-8 in five-setters.
The offense finished with a higher hitting percentage than its opponents 96 times and have lost just nine of those matches.
Aces have been a key to victory; under Mendoza the Gamecocks are 71-16 when matching or surpassing opponents in aces.
If the back line is locked in, the odds swing heavily in South Carolina’s favor; the team has a 52-11 record when finishing with more digs in a match since Mendoza arrived in 2018.

ALL TIME RECORDS

South Carolina holds an 882-701 (.557) all-time record, dating back to it’s first season as a varsity sport in 1974. The team’s 800th win came on Aug. 25, 2018 against Clemson.
The Gamecocks joined the SEC for volleyball in 1991, and have an all-time conference record of 234-323 (.420) in the 31st season as a member. The 200th SEC win came on Nov. 8, 2019 at Mississippi St.
Dating back to 1983, the team has a 37-5 record in its home opener and a 24-18 record in its road opener.
The team has a 17-16 overall record in the opening game of SEC play.
In matches in the Carolina Volleyball Center, opened in 1996, Carolina is 250-136 (.645) overall and 128-117 (.525) in SEC matches. The CVC’s 200th win came on Nov. 16, 2018 against Ole Miss.
Tom Mendoza was introduced as the program’s 13th head coach on Jan. 3, 2018. This is his ninth season overall as a head coach, with a career record of 142-97 and a record of 95-79 at South Carolina. He has led his teams to the NCAA tournament in five of his eight years as a head coach and is just the fourth coach in South Carolina’s history to reach 75 career wins.