Box Score NASHVILLE, Tenn. - - Belmont (3-5), seized the momentum early and never relinquished it, defeating Tennessee Tech (0-7) in straight sets on Tuesday in the Curb Event Center. The Bruins continued to protect their home court, thanks in part to another solid team serving performance as Belmont racked up 11 service aces while holding TTU to no aces on defense. Sophomore Jen Myer had six in the match, all in set three, including a run of four consecutive aces.
Head Coach Deane Webb was pleased with the win, but even more, was pleased with his team's ability to keep its focus throughout the match.
"It's great to be back at home, it always is," Webb said. "We love playing here in front of a great crowd and the Pembroke guys. I was just really impressed with our team's focus throughout the match. There were several opportunities throughout the match to really lose focus and our team remained focused and really did a good job in serve receive and stayed in system almost the entire evening and never got aced a single time. I'm really proud of the job our passers did tonight."
The Bruins jumped out early, hitting .500 in the first set and earning a 25-15 win to take the lead in the match. Set two was more of the same, with Belmont hitting .405 in a 25-17 win. The Bruins gained a big lead in the third set, leading by as many as 10 behind a run of eight straight points from Myer, including her six aces. Besides Myer, sophomore Allison McCoy also had multiple aces, scoring two in the first two sets, while freshman Scarlet Gable, sophomore Hannah Miranda, and sophomore Danielle Prochaska also recorded aces. The service game was just one part of a balanced offensive attack, led by Myer and senior Maggie Johnson, who each recorded 13 kills. Gable also had 11 kills, rounding out a solid performance from her, as she also posted eight digs. Defensively, the Bruins were led by Johnson, who turned in 13 digs, and by sophomore libero Jamie Lundstrom, who had 11. Five different players turned in six or more digs, giving Belmont balance defensively.
"We talked about that before the match, getting started early and getting going quickly," Webb said. "Tennessee Tech is a team that beat us last year and we remember that and I'm sure they remember that. We knew we wanted to get out quickly and not give them a chance to get any momentum. I think we were able to do that. I think Hannah did a really good job distributing the ball tonight, keeping several attackers on the move and not just the same set over and over and I was pleased with our attackers' abilities."
An example of the focus Webb was so proud of came during the long serving run by Myer. Belmont used hustle and a couple of kills to help sustain Myer's run when Tennessee Tech was finally able to return a serve.
"That's a great example of just what I was talking about earlier, that there were many opportunities to lose focus and during her serving run was one of those opportunities, but they did remain focused," Webb said. "We continued to talk on our side. Maggie, I think, communicated at a high level tonight as far as the changes that were happening on the other side. They were changing lineups, they were substituting different players in and moving their serve receive patterns around and moving their attackers around. That's just one small example, but a very good example of our team remaining focused. It allowed Jen to have a lot of fun back there and serve a lot of balls in a row."
A major hurdle for the Bruins last weekend was injuries, but that was not the case tonight. While injuries do present a challenge, Webb and his team won't use them as an excuse for not performing well.
"We tell our team quite often to focus on the things we can control," Webb said. "Whether it's in volleyball or in life, there's really no use stressing about things that are out of our control. We don't ever want to go out there and make excuses. We know there are different struggles that we'll face and ours may be a little different this year than others, but it's really not anything we can control and so we're going to focus on improving every time we come into practice, every time we play a match. Whoever is able to play, we're going to go out there and work our hardest and keep improving."
The coming weekend provides another tournament test for Belmont as the team travels to the Midwest again for the Kangaroo Klassic hosted by UMKC. In addition to facing the host UMKC, the Bruins will also match up with first time opponent Montana State and in-state opponent UT-Martin. While no teams from power conferences await Belmont this weekend, the tournament will still provide challenges for the Bruins and an opportunity to continue improving in the non-conference schedule.
"It's so early in the year, you never really know how good your opponents are," Webb said. "You see people get wins over great teams, but then the next weekend not be as good. You see some teams get wins that you think are great wins, but then the team you thought was great, maybe they aren't as great. So we really don't know how great the teams are this weekend. We feel like they're good teams, we feel like we're going to have to play well to win. I know UT-Martin already has a win over an SEC team. The other opponents there, both Montana State and UMKC, have challenged good teams even if they didn't get the win, so we know we're going to have to play well. I don't know for sure, we never do until we get there, but I believe that physically we will match up okay. I don't believe we'll be looking across the net at the size of player we did last weekend, but we know we're going to need to play well and that's the bottom line. Our goal is to go there and improve."
