Box Score - No. 1 Arkansas-Little Rock 3, No. 8 South Alabama 0SAN MARCOS, Texas – The University of South Alabama volleyball team saw its season come to an end Thursday afternoon as the eighth-seeded Jaguars fell 3-0 (13-25, 18-25, 24-26) to the No. 1 seeded, Arkansas-Little Rock in the opening round of the 2014 Sun Belt Conference Championships held at Strahan Coliseum on the campus of Texas State University.
"Arkansas-Little Rock is a very good team and they have a lot of mature players on their team," South Alabama head coach Amy Hendrichovsky said. "I thought out girls continued to fight throughout the match. We didn't start off very strong, but we built momentum in the second set and carried it over to set three. It says a lot for us on the way we came out in the third set. We wanted to challenge (UALR) and I thought we showed a lot of courage. Unfortunately, we weren't able to pull it out, but it was definitely something for us to build on heading into next season."
The Jaguars finish the 2014 campaign with a 12-19 overall record.
Playing in her final game as a Jag, senior libero Jenna Hassell closed out her career with 10 digs and a pair of service aces. Hassell leaves the program as the all-time career digs leader (1,585) and ranked second in career digs per set average (3.56), just .01 out of first p lace. In her final match, Hassell led the club with 10 digs.
Offensively, South Alabama was led by Mechell Daniel and Jessica Lewis who had six kills each. Nikki Gittens added five kills and three block assists.
Edina Begic and Sonja Milanovic each carded a double-double for Arkansas-Little Rock. Begic ended the match with 13 kills and 10 digs, while Milanovic had 12 kills and 11 digs.
UALR posted a .265 (40-14-98) hitting percentage, while South Alabama managed to hit just .010 (26-25-105) in the loss.
The Trojans, who entered the tournament leading the Sun Belt and ranked among the NCAA leaders in blocks, registered 10.0 total blocks – one solo and 18 block assists. Edina Selimovic led UALR with six blocks – one solo and five assists.
SET ONE: ARKANSAS-LITTLE ROCK 25, SOUTH ALABAMA 13The top-seeded Trojans got off to a quick start, opening the match with five straight points and jumping out to an early 10-1 advantage. Begic – the SBC Offensive Player of the Year – led the charge for UALR during the early run, recording four of her seven kills during that stretch, while also adding a block assists.
Arkansas-Little Rock would keep control of the set from there, eventually extending its lead out to 15 (22-7) on Begic's sixth kill of the match.
South Alabama did trim the deficit to 22-12 following a kill by Daniel, one of her four in the set, but that would be as close as USA would get as the Trojans went on to take the 25-13 first-set win.
UALR posted a .353 hitting percentage during the opening set, while the Jaguars were only able to hit .026 in the frame.
SET TWO: ARKANSAS-LITTLE ROCK 25, SOUTH ALABAMA 18The second set was much closer over the first portion of the match as neither team led by more than two points and there were nine ties.
Holding a 13-12 advantage, Arkansas-Little Rock began to extend its lead as the Trojans pushed across seven of the next 10 points. The UALR frontline capped off the scoring and gave the regular-season champs a 20-15 lead as Megan Mathis and Selimovic teamed up on a block.
Carolee Dillard later sealed the 25-18 second-set win for the Trojans with a kill.
SET THREE: ARKANSAS-LITTLE ROCK 26, SOUTH ALABAMA 24Trailing two sets to none, South Alabama looked to extend the match as the Jaguars took an early six-point advantage. UALR led 2-1 in the set, but USA came right back with seven unanswered points and took an 8-2 lead on an ace by Abby Baker.
Over the next several points, Arkansas-Little Rock trimmed the Jag advantage to two on four occasions, but leading 14-12, South Alabama pushed across the next three points to take a 17-12 following back-to-back aces by Hassell.
With South Alabama leading 20-14, UALR fought its way back and narrowed the deficit to one (20-19) as the Trojans reeled off five-straight points.
The two clubs exchanged points over the next several points. With USA holding match point (24-23), the Jags committed a serving error to tie the set back up. Begic then gave UALR the lead on the next point with a kill and clinched the match on the ensuing point, a South Alabama attack error.
NOTES: South Alabama falls to 3-28 in the all-time series versus Arkansas-Little Rock and 0-2 versus the Trojans in Sun Belt tournament play. USA has now dropped the last seven meetings in the series. The appearance was the 18th in the Sun Belt Championships for the Jags. Playing in her final game as a Jag, senior libero Jenna Hassell closed out her career with 10 digs and a pair of service aces. Hassell leaves the program as the all-time career digs leader (1,585) and ranked second in career digs per set average (3.56), just .01 out of first p lace. In her final match, Hassell led the club with 10 digs.
For more information about South Alabama athletics, check back with www.usajaguars.com, and follow the Jaguars at www.twitter.com/USAJaguarSports. Season tickets for all Jaguar athletic events can be purchased by calling (251) 461-1USA (1872).
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