BOONE, N.C. – The App State volleyball team is set to host newly minted Sun Belt member Marshall on Friday and Saturday. Friday’s match is slated for a 6 p.m. start and will be ’90s Night. Friday’s match will feature ’90s music as well as an opportunity for several students to play Mario Cart on the video board and compete for a grand prize of a new Nintendo Switch. Saturday’s match is set for 1 p.m. and will be the Mountaineers’ Pink Match, which benefits the High Country Breast Cancer Foundation. The first 50 fans will get a free pink App State Volleyball t-shirt. Both matches will be broadcasted on ESPN+.
Last Time Out
The Mountaineers traveled to Monroe, La. to challenge ULM on Oct. 14 and 15, returning to Boone with a pair of victories over the Warhawks to improve to 11-8 (4-4 SBC) on the season. On Friday, the Black and Gold edged past ULM with a 3-2 victory as senior McCall Denny set a new season high in kills (18) and posted 13 digs, earning a double-double. Freshman Maya Winterhoff earned her first career double-double, tallying 10 kills and 11 digs. Fellow freshman Alyssa McBean matched her season and career high of four aces, and posted a season and career high 23 digs. Senior Sam Bickley was the third Mountaineer to record a double-double, recording 29 assists and 11 digs on the night. Fellow senior Sarah Missroon led the team in blocks, totaling six, four of which were solo.
In Saturday’s afternoon matinee, the Mountaineers defeated the Warhawks, 3-1. Denny led the Mountaineers in kills with 16, while Winterhoff led the team in aces, with four. Missroon totaled five blocks on the afternoon and junior Sophie Cain led the Black and Gold in the assists category with 26. Bickley posted her second double-double of the weekend, recording a team-high in digs (13), and notching the second-most assists on the team (26).
App State has won its last four road matches, three of which were consecutive five-set thrillers.
Denny leads the Mountaineers in kills with 224 on the season. Cain holds the team-high in assists, with 410, while freshman Kenady Roper has the team-high in the digs category with 239. Leading the Mountaineers in both the blocks and aces category is Winterhoff, who has posted 23 aces and 74 total blocks on the season so far.
Winterhoff is ranked 12th in the nation this week in the hitting percentage category, recording a percentage of .411 on the season so far. Winterhoff also leads the conference in hitting percentage for the season thus far and is ranked 10th for Sun Belt only play. In the blocks category Missroon is third for the season so far and fifth for conference-only play. Also ranked in conference-only play is McBean, who checks in at tenth in the conference for aces.
For the season as a whole, App State ranks seventh in the Sun Belt in the hitting percentage category (.223) as well as in the digs category, with 1130, averaging 14.30 per set. In conference-only play, App State ranks fifth in the SBC in the blocks category, totaling 76 and averaging 2.24 per set. The Mountaineers also rank seventh in the aces category for conference-only action, posting 50 and averaging 1.47 per set.
Last Time Against Marshall
The Mountaineers last met the Marshall in non-conference action on Aug. 25, 2006, sweeping the Herd, 3-0, in the 2006 season opener in Boone, N.C.
Scouting Marshall
Marshall is 7-13 (1-7 SBC) on the season so far. In non-conference play, the Herd edged past Evansville (Aug. 26) and Middle Tennessee (Sept. 3), and notched four sweeps, defeating Bellarmine (Sept. 2) and Charleston Southern (Sept. 9), before posting consecutive sweeps against Furman (Sept. 16), and USC – Upstate to close out non-conference play. The Herd’s one Sun Belt win was recorded on Sept. 30, as Marshall swept Georgia State in Huntington, W.Va. The Herd is coming off of a four-match losing streak, having dropped a pair of contests to Troy and a pair to Georgia Southern.
Leading the Herd in kills this season is Macy McElhaney, who has 212. Brynn Brown has a team-high 514 assists, and ranks ninth in the SBC for the season so far as well as conference-only play. Kaitlyn Gehler holds the team-high in digs with 264. The Herds’ leader in aces and blocks is Lydia Montague, who has 18 aces and 89 total blocks. Montague ranks second in the blocks category and eighth in the hitting percentage category (.324) in the SBC for the season so far. For conference only play, Montague ranks sixth in the blocks category.
Last fall, Marshall went 9-16 (5-7 C-USA). The Herd posted back-to-back wins over Austin Peay and Miami (OH) on Aug. 28 at the Marshall Invitational as well as two consecutive five set victories over Memphis (Sept. 11) and Morehead State (Sept. 16). In C-USA action, the Herd edged past Middle Tennessee (Oct. 1), posted back-to-back sweeps of Florida Atlantic (Oct. 8 and 9), as well as victories over Old Dominion (Oct. 16) and FIU (Nov. 5).
Up Next
The Mountaineers will head to Norfolk, Va. on Oct. 28 and 29 for their final regular season road trip to take on Old Dominion. Friday’s match is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. and Saturday’s match is scheduled for 1 p.m.
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