KSU’s women’s volleyball opened the Convocation Center with a bang, as it defeated Troy University at home in four sets to claim the KSU Owls Classic on Sept. 8.
The Owls defeated Troy in four sets 3-1 (16-25, 25-21, 25- 20, 25-23) in what was a very competitive final.
KSU went undefeated for the weekend, defeating North Caro- lina Central, Tennessee State, and Tennessee-Chattanooga. The Owls are now sitting pretty with an 8-3 record and are cur- rently on a four-game winning streak.
KSU’s head coach, Karen Weatherington, was very pleased with her team’s per- formance and described the tournament win to be “incred- ible and a couple of years in the making.”
“It feels great to hoist the tro- phy, I’m so proud of my team,” Weatherington said. “They did absolutely everything they knew they could do and I knew they could do, and we came out on the winning side.”
On Saturday, the Owls opened up their final day of competition against Tennessee- Chattanooga, defeating the Mocs 3-1 (25-21, 25-12, 22-25, 25-11).
Senior Turea Jones had a dou- ble-double performance with 13 kills and 13 digs. Teammates that added to KSU’s attack were sophomore Keyaira Stevenson with 17 kills and Junior Emily Bean with 11 kills.
As for Troy, the Trojans had impressive numbers going into the KSU Owls Classic, having six players with double-digit kills and 11 players with double- digit digs. Coach Weatherington wanted to focus on taking Troy out of their serve-receive game in order to keep Troy’s big hit- ters at bay. Weatherington also
mentioned the importance of defending the middle of the court.
“The one thing was that we wanted to make sure we de- fended the middle of the court,” Weatherington said. “They are very smart in placing the balls. That was our plan, we got away from it a couple of times, but we always went back to it.”
Despite coming out flat- footed and losing the first set, the Owls were able to capitalize on their strategy and take back control of the match. Weather- ington believed it was a good learning experience for her team.
“I think the fatigue factor catches up with you when you have those long weekends of four matches in two days, and it is not an easy feat,”Weather- ington said. “But it’s training for down the road when we get
to conference and when we’re traveling.”
The Owls offensive leaders against Troy were Stephenson with 14 kills, Jones with 14 kills, and senior Baylee Strachan with 11 kills. Junior Sara Metroka
did her part distributing the
ball to her teammates with 45 assists. For Strachan, the contest against Troy was a grudge match for the Owls, mentioning there was a, “bitter taste” left in their mouths from last year.
“We go back with Troy,” Stra- chan said. “They came here last year and they took the tourna- ment from us last year on our home court. We came out just on fire and ready to play.”
On Friday, the Owls cruised past their first two opponents for the opening day of the tournament, first defeating North Carolina Central 3-0 (25- 12, 25-22, 25-16). The Owls had an impressive hitting percent- age of .526 in the first set and finished the match with a .321
attack percentage. Jones led the way for KSU with 10 kills and nine digs.
The Owls finished Friday by sweeping Tennessee State 3-0 (25-22, 25-12, 25-21) and had
a .402 hitting percentage as a team. Strachan had five blocks and 10 kills, while teammates Stephenson and Jones added to the offensive effort with 13 kills. Metroka put up another unself- ish performance, with a team high 42 assists and junior libero Camille Pedraza had 11 digs.
Besides their hard work in the off-season, the Owls credited their home performance to the overall atmosphere of the tour- nament. Coach Weatherington was very impressed by not only the fans, but the new additions to the Convocation Center, which included the brand new high definition jumbotron.
“We are really proud to be in here and have our fans have the chance to enjoy the event and enjoy the festivities of what is good quality volleyball, but as well as what we are trying to be, which is Owls with a lot of fierce tenacity and passionate play,” Weatherington said.
To conclude the tournament, Stevenson finished with All- Tournament honors with a team high 53 kills, which was the first nod of her career. Strachan was named Tournament MVP with 38 kills and 13 blocks for the weekend. To describe Strachan’s emotions, she was fired-up.
“Coming into this season,
we expected to bring home some hardware and that was a goal we set out for ourselves,” Strachan said. “But two in three weeks is incredible, and we still have one more tournament left up in Charlotte.”
The Owl’s next tournament will be the 49er Invitational in Charlotte, NC on Sept. 14.