Southern Miss caps Golden Eagle Classic with sweep of Mississippi Valley State

Story from USM Athletics:

Southern Miss (3-5, 0-0 Sun Belt) swept Mississippi Valley State Saturday to close out the weekend with two wins at the Golden Eagle Classic.

The Golden Eagles enjoyed returning home for the first time in 2023, where they have now won six consecutive games, dating back to last season.

Southern Miss topped its best-hitting performance of the season Friday night against Nicholls with another season-high .381 clip against the Devilettes to round out a successful weekend.

“The biggest thing we have been focusing on is just getting better every day,” Head Coach Jenny Hazelwood said. “There were specific areas in practice this week that we focused on. We wanted to set our middles a lot more and clean up a lot of the little things, and we did that. Each weekend is building on the other, and I feel like we did a really good job this weekend on focusing on the things that we knew we had to get better at.”

Freshmen Torrey Tkach and Sadie McAdashone in their first career starts, each recording career-highs of eight kills. McAda registered a match-best 16 digs, while Tkach earned four blocks and posted an efficient .889 clip on nine attempts.Freshmen setters Franky Panunzio and Hayden Riddle split setter duties again, joined by sophomore Ella Voorhees, who helped create opportunities for the Southern Miss attack. Hazelwood said she is pleased with the results and progress at the position from this week’s practices.

“I really liked how our freshmen setters stepped up today, and we also had a sophomore setter out there too. They all just did a great job and it was really good to see us focus on certain things in practice and see that come out in the matches,” Hazelwood said.

 Southern Miss rolled out of the gates with a dominant 25-7 first set victory and continued its momentum in the second set with a 25-8 win, capped by a 12-1 run.

The Devilettes fought with the Golden Eagles to start the third set, but Kallie Siebrasse hit two straight service aces to push Southern Miss back ahead for the remainder of the match. The Golden Eagles earned its second straight sweep of the weekend with a 25-13 victory in the third set.