The No. 9 SMU volleyball team took down the Miami Hurricanes 3-1 at Moody Coliseum on Friday Nov. 15. The No. 37 Miami Hurricanes arrived in Dallas on a four-game winning streak, prepared to make the Mustangs work for the win.
The first set saw Miami take the lead as they challenged the Mustang defense. The Hurricanes placed balls on the perimeter of SMU’s court, forcing the Mustang defense to hustle to keep up. SMU took a timeout at 12-15 with Miami ahead, presumably to regroup their defense.
“It’s not from lack of effort, we needed to make some adjustments and play a little bit better small-ball,” SMU head coach Sam Erger said regarding set one.
By 16-20, Miami remained ahead and both teams had used up their timeouts. The Hurricanes took the first set, but not without a fight from SMU. Natalie Foster helped put the Mustangs within 5 points of the win with two big kills. The second set brought a new opportunity for SMU and they opened it with a new energy that had been missing previously.
“We weren’t really playing our game on our side of the net,” outside hitter Maya Tabron said.
That changed quickly.
Though Miami’s net defense proved strong, which made it difficult for SMU score without a hole in the block, the Mustangs seemed to have ironed out the kinks from the first set and won set two with a 5-point margin. They later took set three, beating out the Hurricanes by eight points.
In the fourth set, a challenged call was the difference between a Mustang victory and a fifth set. Throughout the fourth set, SMU maintained an aggressive defense at the net while Miami’s on-court communication faltered. At 21-20, the referee called a Hurricane hit out. After Miami’s head coach challenged the play, it was confirmed that the ball did not touch a Mustang player on its way out.
The final point of the fourth set began with fans on their feet and ended with a block from SMU’s Nnedi Okammor, who is responsible for a substantial portion of SMU’s success during the matchup against the Hurricanes.
“At one point she was just dominating, like truly taking over the match”, Erger said.
Okammor’s defensive dominance on the court helped not only lead the Mustangs to a win but helped her achieve her first career double-double with 11 kills and 11 blocks.
After the game, the team was cheered off the court by dozens of young girls asking for pictures and autographs as the team celebrated their fifth consecutive win.
“Love playing in Moody, making memories with these girls”, Erger said. “We just wanna relish in the final sprint of this season, so I thought that that was a fun match.”
