The Kennesaw State women’s volleyball team made an outstanding comeback and secured their first ASUN victory against Stetson with an ending score of 3-2.
The Owls have now moved up to 8-5 overall and 1-1 in the ASUN conference.
KSU won the first set and was able to pull through and redeem themselves in the fourth and fifth set after falling short to the Hatters with a total of 23 attack errors and five service errors in sets two and three.
Leaders that played a major role towards the Owls’ victory included an accumulation of 18 outstanding kills from Outside Hitter Manu Johnsen; Shelby Dennis’ killer 20 digs; Claire Parson’s impressive nine blocks and McKinley Ferguson’s striking 48 service assists.
In the first set, the Owls ruthlessly started the first play of the game with a killer block assist from Olivia Burrage, who made seven block assissts throughout the game and Emma Shurfranz, who accumulated 6 block assists and 11 kills throughout all 5 matches. The Owls teamed up to end the first set with 15 kills and four aces.
The second set, however, marked the beginning of the Hatter’s rise. While the Owls’ 16 total service and attack errors contributed towards their fall, they fell 5 points short to the Hatters as they took an early lead of 9-3 and won the final play with a kill from Amaris Carter, resulting in a score of 20-25 tying the match at 1-1.
“I felt that we were riding a proverbial roller coaster tonight,” Head Coach Keith Schunzel said. “But was really proud of the nice mentality switch we had when we started playing with a little more pride, confidence and aggressiveness.”
By set three, the tension started to rise as the Owls and the Hatters scored back and forth up to 7-7 and then became tied at 21-21 with a block assist from Schurfranz and Parsons. The Owls lost the last four points of the match with an attack error on the last play, resulting in 21-25 and a close edge of 2-1.
Set four set the tone for the Owl’s victory. With an intense tie of 25-25, the last two plays consisted of insane kills from Shurfranz and Johnsen, ending the match with 27-25 and back tied with the Hatters at 2-2.
The intense final set was tied at every single point through 9-9, until the Owls’ accumulated three kills from Parsons, Ferguson and Butkovich along with two block assists—with the last play being a powerful teamed-up block assist from Burrage and Ferguson, with a final score of 15-13 and a victorious winning match of 3-2 for the Owls.
“We are still working on through line-up changes after some injuries we’ve had,” Head Coach Keith Schunzel said. “So we’re still trying to figure out what makes the most sense.”
The Owls will remain at home to play against the Florida Gulf Coast University on October 1 at 1 P.M. in the Convocation Center.
