The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
UAB
Southern Miss
Dent's Career-High Propels UAB Into C-USA Semifinals
11/16/2007 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
Nov. 16, 2007
HUNTINGTON, W. Va. - The UAB volleyball team marched into the semifinals of the Conference USA Tournament at Marshall by beating Southern Miss, 3-0 (30-21, 30-26, 30-23), Friday afternoon. Junior Casey Dent led the Blazers with a career-high 19 kills, while senior Brianna Galvin finished with 19 digs.
UAB improves to 23-8 on the year with Friday's quarterfinal victory, while Southern Miss concludes its season at 13-21.
"Casey and Brianna both played great for us today," said UAB head coach Kerry Messersmith. "We did a lot of things well but we have to play better tomorrow if we want to continue to advance in this tournament."
Dent hit .472 for the match to aid her 19 kills. Junior Aleksandra Vujovic finished with 14 kills.
Junior Nevena Stefanov recorded her ninth double-double of the season with 48 assists and 11 digs.
Junior Lilly Domingos and senior Fernanda Domingos each finished with eight kills and four blocks.
Southern Miss was led by Morgan Johnson who totaled 10 kills on .348 hitting to go along with four blocks.
Dent had seven kills on .778 hitting to help UAB pull away with a 30-21 victory in game one. Galvin made seven digs in helping the Blazers set the tone for the match, while Fernanda chipped in on both ends, putting down three kills and three blocks.
The score remained close throughout the early stages of game two before an ace by Stefanov opened up a five-point UAB lead at 17-12. Southern Miss used a flurry of Blazer errors to come back and tie the game at 20-20 on a service ace by Angela Hlavaty before taking a 21-20 lead following an attack error on the Blazers.
UAB came back to tie the game, 22-22, on a Dent kill and then later, another put away by Dent opened up a 25-22 advantage. Moving closer to taking a 2-0 lead into the intermission, Dent continued her dominant play, putting away her 16th kill of the match to take a 28-25 lead and then landing a service ace to bring up game point at 29-25.
Southern Miss fought off one game point before Fernanda put down her sixth kill of the match to give UAB the 30-26 victory in game two.
Dent finished with nine kills and hit .600 in game two.
UAB jumped out to a 7-2 lead in game three on a block by the Domingos sisters and it never looked back as the Blazers pulled away with a 30-23 victory that was capped off by a ball handling error on Southern Miss.
The Blazers will now meet second-seeded Tulane in the semifinals on Saturday at 4:00 p.m. Tulane shut out Rice, 3-0 (30-26, 30-26, 30-28), behind 22 kills from Sara Radosevic in its quarterfinal match Friday.
UAB lost to Tulane, 3-0, earlier this season, however the Blazers were running an unfamiliar offensive system since it was Stefanov's first match back from a five-match injury hiatus.
UAB beat Tulane, 3-1, in the quarterfinals of the 2006 tournament.
