Sept. 6, 2008

Final Stats

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. ---- The Samford volleyball team grabbed the UMKC Kangaroo Klassic Championship title Saturday afternoon with a 3-0 (25-20, 250-20, 25-15) win over Florida Atlantic. The Bulldogs are 6-1 on the season now, continuing their best season start yet. Sophomore setter Hillary Fountain was named tournament MVP while senior Libero Courtney Gay and junior middle blocker Sheriden Stangohr also earned spots on the all-tournament teams.

"It gives us great experience early in the season to play a championship game," Samford head coach Derek Schroeder said. "The team really bared down and executed when they needed to. Our offense was fast and efficient all weekend which showed when Hillary Fountain got MVP. Our first contact was awesome which is proved through Courtney Gay being named All-Tournament."

Fountain earned her MVP status notching 138 assists (11.58 apg), 15 digs and 10 blocks over the weekend. Against Florida Atlantic, she had 32 assists with three block assists, one dig and three kills, hitting .429. Gay added eight digs to her weekend total of 42 while Stangorh posted eight kills and hit .500 against the Owls while grabbing four block assists.

Kirstein Sosnowski hit .333 with seven kills and three block assists while Sara Sears had six kills, two digs and one block assist. Rachel Gadberry posted three kills and three block assists while adding one ace and one dig. Sarah Gardner dug nine balls and had three aces while Samantha Bland had six digs and Katie Luckman added one dig and one ace.

The Bulldogs will be back in action next weekend, Sept. 15-16, in the Hampton Inn Bama Bash hosted by the University of Alabama. In that tournament, Samford will take on Alabama and Murray State on Friday and South Florida on Saturday.

Samford 3, Florida Atlantic 0

Samford opened up the first set grabbing the first two points on a kill by Sears and an FAU error, but the Owls quickly evened the score. Samford soon took a took a five-point lead with the help of some opponent errors and kills by Adams and Sosnowski and a block by Fountain and Sosnowski. The Owls fought to cut the lead to one, but Samford held on won set one, 25-20.

The Bulldogs jumped out to an early three-point lead in the second set, first with a block by Gadberry and Sosnowski followed by an ace by Fountain and kill by Sosnowski. The Owls got on the board due to a blocking error by Samford but the Bulldogs still held on to their lead, extending it to seven. After an FAU timeout, the Owls went on a 9-5 run to get within two but Samford then took a timeout to regroup. Leading 17-15, the Bulldogs came out of the break and took care of business, allowing the Owls only four points in the final third of the set, and winning 25-20.

At the beginning of the third set, it looked to be a close game. The Bulldogs went up by two but the Owls quickly caught up and tied the score. With a 5-5 tie, Samford tacked on three straight points to go up by three and soon the Bulldogs lead by five. FAU took a timeout with the Bulldogs leading 14-9, but Samford continued to dominated the third set and eventually won, 25-16.