DALLAS (SMU) – Janelle Giordano scored 11 kills and finished with four blocks to lead the SMU volleyball team to 3-0 win against UCF in Moody Coliseum Thursday night. The senior hit .611 with no errors in 18 attack attempts as the Mustangs improved to 20-7 overall and 13-2 in the American Athletic Conference. The Knights fell to 20-8 overall, 10-5 in The American. This is the fourth straight season SMU has won at least 20 matches.
SMU came back in the third set to complete the sweep, using an 8-2 run to erase an 18-15 deficit and take a 23-20 lead. After the Knights scored back-to-back points on an SMU service error and an ace,
Kendall Patterson and
Katie Hegarty scored kills to end the match. The Mustangs trailed by as many as five points, 16-11, before mounting the comeback.
Hegarty finished with eight kills and five blocks, and
Lauren Mills scored 10 kills, giving SMU two players in double digits in the 3-0 win.
Brittany Adams and
Kristen Stehling each added nine kills, and Stehling also posted three blocks. Freshman
Kendall Patterson recorded 41 assists, extending her lead in the conference with a season average of 10.78 assists per set. Defensively,
Morgan Heise finished with 20 digs, reaching 20 for the 13th time this season and fourth time in a three-set match. SMU hit .298 with 49 kills, while holding UCF to 36 kills on a .134 attack percentage.
With the Knights leading by a point, SMU scored four straight for a 5-2 lead and never trailed again, winning the first set 25-17. The Mustangs pushed their lead to five, 11-6, forcing UCF into its first timeout. The Knights never got closer than four points from the lead the rest of the set. Giordano led the offensive charge with five kills on five attempts, and SMU hit .359 with 18 kills as a team.
SMU scored five straight, breaking a 6-6 tie to take an 11-6 lead en route to a second straight 25-17 win for a 2-0 lead in the match. The Mustangs led by as many as nine points in the set, 20-11, after a 4-0 run that featured two SMU kills and a block. Giordano scored six of SMU's 15 kills, while the Mustangs posted five blocks in the set.
The Mustangs host USF Saturday at 1 p.m. before playing three of the last four matches on the road.
