The Mustangs moved their way back into the top three in the American Athletic Conference in a 3-1 win over Memphis on Friday night in Moody Coliseum.
The win marked the Mustang’s 20 win of the season and they improved to 20-5 overall and 9-4 in conference play while the Tigers fell to 19-8 overall and 9-4 in conference play.
The match was a battle of the liberos featuring two of the league’s top liberos, Morgan Heise and Aleksandra Petronijevic. SMU’s Heise finished with 31 digs, hitting 30 for the third time this season while Petronijevic finished 36. That put Memphis at 92 while SMU finished with 83.
The Mustangs won the first set 25-21 when Cailin Bula had a kill after Memphis had scored two straight points, for the last point of the set. SMU started the match with a four-point lead, 10-6, but the Tigers came back to score the next four tying the score. SMU then went on a 5-0 run to break the 12-12 tie and Memphis never got within three points of the Mustangs again. Avery Acker was on the cusp of a double double in one set with her 12 assists and eight digs.
SMU won the second set 25-15 taking a 2-0 lead in the match. Bula led the offense with four kills while the Mustangs recorded 18 digs as a team, five of which came from Caroline Young, and held Memphis to a -.051 attack percentage. With the score tied 9-9, SMU went on a 10-3 run, taking a 19-12 lead and the Tigers scored only three more points.
Memphis came out strong in the third set and went on a 7-0 run to take a 23-19 lead, winning the third set 25-21, extending the match.
In the fourth set SMU took a 25-23 victory to win the match. The Tigers tied the score 19-19 after scoring three straight, but back-to-back attack errors by Memphis gave SMU a 24-22 lead. Game point came from Janelle Giordano who scored her ninth kill to give SMU the victory.
The Mustangs continued competition on Sunday where Bybel led the Mustangs to a 3-1 win against Cincinnati.
Bybel led four Mustangs with at least 10 kills, with Caroline Young scoring 12, Janelle Giordano with 11, and Cailin Bula with 10.
Giordano hit .667 and recorded a match-high seven of SMU’s 13.5 blocks with only one attack error.
Avery Acker finished with a team-high 17 digs and 44 assists for her 21st double-double of the season.
Heise finished with 16 digs while Young and Julianne Scheidler also recorded 11 digs each and Young had her seventh double-double.
SMU will return to the road to take on USF Friday at 7 p.m. ET/6 p.m. CT and UCF Sunday at 12:30 p.m. ET/11:30 a.m. CT.
