ETSU Heads to League-Leading Samford Friday Night

Coming off a 3-0 homestand, the ETSU volleyball team hits the road as the Bucs travel to Birmingham to face league-leading Samford Friday night. Game time is set for 8 p.m. Eastern inside Pete Hanna Center.

LAST TIME OUT FOR THE BUCS:

ETSU (11-13, 5-3 SoCon) took down The Citadel in straight sets (25-13, 25-16, 25-18) Tuesday night inside Brooks Gym. The Bucs capped off a perfect home stint as ETSU also defeated Wofford (three sets) and Mercer (four sets).

Senior Meredith Hardy (Kingsport, Tenn.) paced the Buccaneer offense against the Bulldogs as the ETSU middle blocker hit .583 (15-1-24) and tallied seven blocks, moving her streak of recording at least one block to 117 straight matches.

The Bucs hit .337 (40-8-95) as a team and finished with seven service aces – four coming from senior libero Katie Muey (Alexandria, Ind.). Muey served the Bucs to the final six points to complete the sweep. ETSU also out-blocked The Citadel, 11.5-2.0.

Senior Jamie Rutledge (Kingsport, Tenn.) and sophomore Kristen Favre (Plano, Texas) quarterbacked the offense as Rutledge finished with 21 assists and Favre totaled 16 assists and four digs.

After sweeping the homestand, ETSU has won six straight inside Brooks Gym.

ABOUT SAMFORD:

Samford has won 10 straight matches and sits atop the SoCon standings at 14-7, 8-0.

The Bulldogs are led by senior Michaela Ressor and sophomore Erin Bognar, while sophomore setter Erika Pifer ranks second in the SoCon in assists (10.80). Ressor, the reigning SoCon Player of the Year, leads the conference in kills per set (3.60) and Bognar’s 3.03 kills per set ranks seventh.

As a team, Samford leads the SoCon in service aces per set (1.81) and is second in hitting percentage (.231). Overall, the Bulldogs rank third nationally in service aces per set and Chelsi Carter is seventh in service aces per set (0.55).

SERIES HISTORY:

Friday marks the first-ever meeting between the two programs.

NOTABLES:

ETSU has won three straight and seven of its last nine matches, while the Bucs have only dropped one set in their last three matches.

Katie Muey’s 1,641 career digs rank second in ETSU history … Muey needs 49 digs to pass Tish Wilson (1991-94) for the all-time program record.

Meredith Hardy, the ETSU career blocks leader (588), ranks second among NCAA active Division I players in total blocks.

This season, Muey ranks sixth nationally in total digs (479) and Hardy is 12th in total blocks (114). As a team, the Blue and Gold rank in the top-50 nationally in total blocks (21st, 220.5), digs (29th, 1401) and assists (47th, 1043). 

During its three-match win streak, ETSU is averaging 13.9 kills, 13.2 assists, 15.3 digs, 3.40 blocks and 1.80 aces per set. Meredith Hardy is hitting .522 (41-6-67) and averaging 1.80 blocks per set during this run. Rylee Milhorn is hitting .328 (24-5-58), and Jamie Rutledge (5.40) and Kristen Favre (5.70) are posting over five assists per set over the last three matches.

Head coach Lindsey Devine is two wins shy of recording No. 200 for her career … Devine is ETSU’s all-time winningest coach with 198 victories.

COVERAGE:

Live stats will be available for Friday’s match via StatBroadcast. 

Twitter updates will also be available by following @ETSUAthletics and @ETSUVolleyball.

TEXTCASTER:

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For more information on Buccaneer volleyball, visit ETSUBucs.com and click on the volleyball page.