CLEMSON, S.C. – Jess Vastine, Mikayla Shields and Alicia Starr each tallied nine kills, and South Carolina hit .304 for the match in a 3-0 (25-17, 25-19, 25-21) volleyball victory over Georgia Southern at the Clemson Challenge Friday afternoon.

Anna Wenger tallied eight kills and hit .389 to lead Georgia Southern (2-5), which played its first match in 12 days. The Eagles had three contests canceled because of Hurricane Irma.

Cathrine Murray tallied seven kills and five digs for the Eagles, while Skylar Ball and Lauren Reichard each posted five kills.

The story
An 11-2 Gamecock run broke open the first set, and Georgia Southern led 10-5 in the second before South Carolina (6-4) used an 8-3 spurt to take a 13-12 advantage. Megan Chevalier and Murray posted consecutive kills for the Eagles, but South Carolina answered with an 11-4 run on its way to winning the set 25-19.

GS rallied from a 20-14 deficit with a 5-2 run in the third, keyed by kills from Murray and Ball and a block by Reichard. South Carolina won the next two points for match point and finished the contest on an Eagle serving error.

Quotable from head coach Dustin Wood
"It was a tough result today. South Carolina played really, really well, which pushed us to play well. I'm happy with our pins and middles. They did a good job finding ways to score when they got the ball in the places they needed it. Anna (Wenger) had a great game."

"We followed the game plan well; we kept their best hitter in the low .100s. We lost the setting battle and defense battle tonight. We had opportunities to make plays defensively but didn't execute or we didn't put our bodies in the right position to make plays."

"I'm happy with some things we did. We are getting good performances; we just need some others to follow and there was a little rust at times with the 12 days off. I'm looking forward to keep building things tomorrow against ACC and Big 12 opponents."

Next up
The Eagles take on tournament host Clemson (12:30 p.m.) and Texas Tech (4 p.m.) tomorrow.

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