Sept. 14, 2006

Box Score

Box Score

THIBODAUX, La. -- -

Ashley Petrinec

Ashley Petrinec and Mari Ruddick each tallied a team-high 13 kills and Southern Miss tallied 17 total blocks to defeat Nicholls State 30-24, 30-24, 22-30, 31-29 here Wednesday night at Stopher Gymnasium.

The Lady Eagles (6-6) snapped a two-match losing streak as they improved to 28-14 all-time against the Lady Colonels. NSU (6-6) lost for the fourth time in the last five matches as well as the fourth straight time to Southern Miss.

"This wasn't our best outing," said third-year coach Ricci Luyties. "We made things very hard on ourselves. We are making some plays that were given to us more difficult and other teams are capitalizing on it and this goes back to our last tournament in which Cincinnati did the same thing to us.

"The team fought hard, though, and I did like the work of them in the fourth game and they haven't given up at any point in time, but we just have to clean up our play.

Morgan Johnson tallied a career-high 10 blocks (one solo, nine assists), while Ruddick (two solo, four assists) and Angela Hlavaty (six assists) added six total blocks apiece. Maia Ivanova tallied a team-best 11 digs, while Petrinec added 10 for the Lady Eagle defense.

Atina Porter, one of the top hitters in the Southland Conference, recorded a match-high 27 kills, while Emjoli Ford added 15 digs.

The Lady Eagles rode their strong blocking along with 13 kills and a .227 team hitting percentage for a win in the opening game. Southern Miss notched four block assists and limited NSU's top threat of Atina Porter to just seven kills and a .167 hitting percentage to take the early advantage in the match.

With the first game tied at 17-17, Southern Miss reeled off five straight points and eight of the next nine to put some cushion between the two teams en route to the opening game victory.

The second game saw the Lady Eagles take a huge early advantage, leading at 19-7 at one point, before the Lady Colonels rallied, including seven straight points to start the run, to cut the margin to 21-20. Southern Miss then got consecutive kills from Mari Ruddick and Amy Whitehead to start a string of six points over the next eight serves to pull away in the second game.

NSU rallied in game three. Down 13-12, the Lady Colonels converted eight straight points and Southern Miss could not overcome 10 attack errors in the set as the home squad cruised to their lone win in the contest.

In the final game, Southern Miss rallied from a 22-17 deficit and tied the game at both 28-28 and 29-29 before Morgan Johnson tallied a kill off an over-pass and NSU committed a ball handling error to end the match.

Southern Miss returns home to begin Conference USA play against UCF on Friday, Sept. 15, at 7 p.m., then plays Troy on Saturday at 2 p.m. Both matches will be played in the Payne Center.