University of North Carolina-Charlotte Athletics issued the following announcement on Oct. 22.
Powered behind a career-high 31 kills from Sydney Rowan to go along with 19 digs, Charlotte volleyball took care of Marshall with a thrilling 3-2 (20-25, 25-19, 25-18, 20-25, 15-12) victory in the Dig Pink match Friday night.
"It means everything," began Head Coach Karen Weatherington. "To wear pink and see my mom, being a survivor, in the stands means everything to bring awareness to breast cancer. This is the first time my mom has seen us play this match. It means a lot because Marshall is our big rival. It was an emotional, high-intensity match."
DRAMA IN THE FIFTH
Tied at 2-2 after Marshall (8-14, 4-5 C-USA) took the fourth, Charlotte (11-8, 4-3) capped off the night with a thrilling comeback in the back-and-forth sprint to 15. A pair of Rowan kills on back-to-back plays put the Niners up 4-3 early on before Nalani Lyde's kill moments later extended the lead out to 7-4. After an Emani' Foster kill made it 8-5, the Herd made their comeback with a 5-0 run taking a 10-8 lead. Trading the next couple of points to make it 11-9, a big kill in the middle by Amani McArthur turned the tide for good. Lyde followed with a kill before McArthur added another to take a 12-11 lead forcing a second Marshall timeout. Foster's ace pushed the lead out to 13-11, the 31st kill from Rowan set up match point at 14-12 before a Lyde block with Maia Edwards ended the night with a 15-12 victory in the fifth.
SETTING THE TONE IN THE SECOND
After dropping the first set 25-20, the Niners put together an emphatic response in the second hitting .528 as a team putting down a whopping 21 kills in the 25-19 win to even things up. Lyde, Foster, Rowan and McArthur all got the ball rolling early on for an 11-7 lead while two more for Rowan in a three-play span slid the lead out to 18-11. Two more kills from Foster, an ace from Lyde and the set point kill conversion by Rowan completed the response from the home team.
Coach K on the Set 2 Surge
"I thought we had a couple of points we gave away in that first set still feeling each other out. The girls talked about being low-error when they came back out, staying aggressive on offense and it played itself out. That was an amazing show for a set."
2-1 AFTER THREE
Charlotte took a 2-1 match lead breaking a 6-6 tie in the third with a service ace by Rowan. An Annika Wetterstrom ace pushed it out to 11-8 before a Rowan/McArthur block extended it to 14-9. Following a Niners timeout with a 17-15 lead, Rowan put down two more big kills to make it 21-17 in front of an ace by Foster, kill from McArthur and another throw down by Rowan finished off the 25-18 win.
FOUR IN DOUBLE-DIGITS, FIVE IN THE BOOKS
Behind Rowan's career night with 31 kills, Foster followed with 20, Lyde 12 and McArthur 10 to complete the foursome with double-digit kills. Wetterstrom ran the offense to the tune of 52 assists while libero Sophie Whalen secured 21 digs. Rowan, Foster and Wetterstrom all completed double-doubles with 19, 17 and 10 digs respectively.
Weatherington on the Big Night
"We had some many intangible things happen. Maia Edwards coming out of nowhere setting a block for us to make hitters re-think what they're doing, Nalani is a soldier on the court that we always ride behind, what the unsung heroes did was able to highlight certain players to come through. Sydney had a career-high 31 kills and it's not for a lack of trying because she's seen a lot of balls. She's close to breaking the attack attempts record, she's carried us and taught a lot of people on the floor what's happening. Emani' had to be a little bit touch-and-go finding her way around blocks tonight and Sophie is just on fire. It was a great team effort, all the things we worked on this week came together."
RECORD BREAKING ARM
After putting 74 more career swings under her belt on Friday, Rowan now needs just 31 more attack attempts to break the all-time school record of 4,703 set by Christy Galvin during her career from 1997-2000. With the 31 Friday, Rowan shot from seventh to fifth on the all-time career kills list moving to 1,441 becoming the first player to get into that category's top-five since 2005.
SATURDAY, 3PM
That's the rematch time for both teams on Saturday to wrap up another grind-it-out weekend in Conference USA. Live video and stats will be available at http://www.charlotte49ers.com.
Coach K on the Rematch Saturday
"It used to be 'hey we did this well and let's do this again' but you've got to clean the slate and start all over. We have to carry over the energy and enthusiasm. We need to get some rest tonight and take a good look at our defensive scheme."
Original source can be found here.
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