University of Georgia
Auburn
Georgia Defeats Auburn in Five Sets
November 02, 2014 | Volleyball
The Georgia volleyball team took a 3-2 (26-24, 28-30, 25-19, 10-25, 15-13) victory over the Auburn Tigers on Sunday, Nov. 2 at the Ramsey Center in Athens, Ga.
Nov. 2, 2014
ATHENS, Ga. - The Georgia volleyball team took a 3-2 (26-24, 28-30, 25-19, 10-25, 15-13) victory over the Auburn Tigers on Sunday, Nov. 2 at the Ramsey Center in Athens, Ga., for its first five-set win of the season. With the win, The Bulldogs improve to 11-12 on the year with a 3-8 mark in Southeastern Conference play, while the Tigers drop to 9-13 overall (1-8 SEC).
"I'm really proud of the team for a number of reasons," head coach Lizzy Stemke said. "We've been in this situation before with some really close sets and then haven't played extremely aggressive in the fifth set. We showed really great resiliency and fight to come from behind to win a really big fifth set. It's really good for us, for our confidence to know that we keep fighting, we keep fighting and some of them will swing our way."
The Bulldogs had four players with double-digit kills, led by Tirah Le'au and Desiree McCray with 12. Amanda Dachs and Lauren Teknipp finished the day with 11 kills each. Kaylee Kehoe led the team with 35 assists. Gaby Smiley was impressive on the defensive front, finishing with a team-best 19 digs. Le'au also recorded 10 digs for her 11th double-double of the year.
Georgia jumped to an early 4-1 lead in the first set sparked by a McCray kill. Auburn battled back to tie the score at 4-4, and the teams went point-for-point before Georgia went on a 7-1 run to take a 15-9 lead. The Tigers battled back to draw within two points, but a kill by Tirah Le'au allowed Georgia to keep momentum. After the Bulldogs scored four unanswered points, Auburn responded to tie the score at 24-24. Thanks to a Megan Spencer kill and an attack error off of Le'au's serve, Georgia took the first set 26-24.
After Georgia dropped a marathon second set 28-30, the Bulldogs wasted no time in establishing a lead in the third. Georgia used a Lauren Teknipp kill on the opening play to spur a 5-0 run and force an Auburn timeout. The teams went point-for-point before Georgia extended its lead to 10-3 on a Tiger attacking error. Auburn rallied, scoring two points in response to each Bulldog point, and then went on a 4-0 run. The Tigers used their momentum to tie the score twice at 15 and 16 points, respectively, but a kill by Spencer set up a 3-0 Georgia run. The Bulldogs outscored Auburn 6-2 to close the third set and used a Le'au kill to seal the 25-19 decision.
The Bulldogs dropped the fourth set 25-10, but rebounded in the fifth. Thanks to two kills each from Le'au and Jasmine Eatmon, Georgia found itself with a quick 8-4 lead. But Auburn would not quit and used a 6-0 run to take the lead. Down 9-12, McCray came up big with a kill to put Georgia back in the race. Georgia scored the next four points, two of those coming on service aces by Cassidy Anderson. With a 14-13 lead and playing for the match, Georgia sealed the win on yet another McCray kill. The Bulldogs took the fifth set 15-13 to seal the team's first five-set victory of the year.
Georgia returns to action on Friday, Nov. 7 at 7 p.m. to face the Kentucky Wildcats in Lexington, Ky. The match will be aired on the SEC Network +.
