USC Opens Tournament With 3-0 Sweep Of Yale

Friday, December 2

Galen Center

7:00 PM

USC

Yale

USC Opens Tournament With 3-0 Sweep Of Yale

December 02, 2011 | Women's Volleyball

Dec. 2, 2011

Final Stats

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LOS ANGELES - Sophomore middle blocker Alexis Olgard (Spokane, Wash./Mead HS) had a team-high 11 kills Friday as the No. 7-seeded USC Women of Troy opened the 2011 NCAA Women's Volleyball Tournament with a 3-0 sweep (25-13, 25-13, 25-18) over the Yale Bulldogs at the Galen Center. Olgard had no errors while hitting .647 (11-0-17) with three blocks in the first-ever meeting in women's volleyball between the two schools.

Senior All-American middle blocker Lauren Williams added to a strong middle attack by the Trojans (26-4) with 10 kills. Katie Fuller had seven kills while hitting .500 (7-0-14) and tied a career high with four service aces. Senior All-America setter Kendall Bateman had 35 assists as the Women of Troy hit .350 as a team. USC had just one hitting error in each of the first two sets.

Bridget Hearst led Yale (18-12) with seven kills while Mollie Rogers had six kills and nine digs. Kendall Polan posted 19 assists and nine digs for the Bulldogs.

The Trojans were able to score four straight points on Erin Yoder's serve in the first set to take the 9-4 lead. USC, ranked No. 1 in the nation in the latest AVCA poll, pushed its advantage to 12 points with a 12-5 fun as the team would hit .414 in the set. The second set would mirror the first one as the Women of Troy once again hit .414 in the set. After jumping out to an 11-3 lead, the Trojans would push the margin to a 12-point advantage at 21-9. Freshman Emily Young sent the teams into the intermission with a kill.

After the break, Yale came out with some fire as the Bulldogs started with a 6-1 run. Sara Shaw's serve brought the Trojans back into the lead at 9-7. At 12-12, Williams' kill would help USC to break away and hold onto the lead for the remainder of the match. Olgard terminated in back-to-back attempts for the 22-15 score and Alex Jupiter, who only recorded 25 swings on the night and had 17 digs in the match, finished off the sweep.

USC faces Tulsa in a second-round match tomorrow night at 7 p.m. The match will be broadcast live on usctrojans.com with a free video webcast and features Jupiter, the Pac-12 Conference Player of the Year, and Tyler Henderson of Tulsa, who is the Conference USA Player of the Year. Henderson had 30 kills in a four-set win earlier in the first-round win over Oklahoma.

Notes: Despite being located in Connecticut, the Yale roster featured seven players from the state of California...two players from each team (Katie Fuller and Natalie Hagglund from USC and Maddie Rudnick and Kendall Polan from Yale) all played at La Costa Canyon HS in Carlsbad...USC has not lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament since 1989...USC libero Natalie Hagglund with 13 digs tonight, moved into seventh place on USC's single-season list for digs to pass Katie Haller (489 in 1991)...Hagglund needs only six digs to tie her mark of 497 digs from last season...Alexis Olgard tied her season high of 11 kills (Nov. 18 against Arizona State in a four-set win, also with no errors similar to tonight)...Katie Fuller recorded four aces for the second time in her career (Sept. 21, 2010 at UC Irvine)...Alex Jupiter's 17 digs tonight was one off her season best of 18, set at California on Oct. 29...USC recorded its 21st 3-0 sweep of the season, tying the third-highest mark of sweeps since the 2000 season...the 2000 squad also had 21 sweeps on the season...USC is now 76-9 all-time at the Galen Center since its opening in 2006.

YALE      13-13-18USC   25-25-25
Records: USC (26-4), Yale (18-12)Kills: Alexis Olgard 11 (USC), Bridget Hearst 7 (YALE)
Team:    YALE    USC1   .128    .4142   .030    .4143   .132    .267Match   .100    .350