Volleyball to Compete in Bear Bash this Weekend
9/5/2008 4:15:00 AM | Volleyball
STATESBORO, Ga. --- Fresh off a 2-1 record and a second place finish at the Holiday Inn Invitational last weekend, the Georgia Southern volleyball team takes to the road to take part in the Bear Bash hosted by Mercer.
The Eagles won their opening two matches over Presbyterian and Central Florida but dropped the finale 3-1 to champion Jacksonville.
Providing the opposition Friday will be Bethune-Cookman at 3 p.m. and Mercer at 7 p.m. The schedule resumes Saturday at 1 p.m. against Auburn and a rematch with Presbyterian at 5 p.m.
Video of GSU’s match with Mercer will be available live on the Internet here.
“They all present a little different challenge,” said head coach Chad Callihan. “All the matches should be pretty competitive. It’s a good challenge for us at this point in the season. We picked up some things we needed to work on from the previous week and hopefully we’ll be able to execute them a little bit better this week.”
The defense, particularly at the net, was largely to thank for the team’s success in the first two matches of the season. The team recorded 14 blocks in each of their two wins, the most in a match since 2006. GSU ranks third in the SoCon in blocks per set at 2.62 and individually, sophomore Michelle Uzoh and freshman Parker Small are third and fourth, respectively, with 1.31 and 1.15 per set.
“We’ve talked about our blocking being a desire type of thing and want to make sure that’s there all the time and have the proper attitude about it,” said Callihan. “It certainly makes our floor defense a lot easier to play off of a strong block so hopefully it’ll be there for us again this weekend and we can use it as one of our strengths.”
