The Southern Utah volleyball team picked up their first win of the season Sunday afternoon, beating Montana 3-1 (22-25, 25-12, 25-15, 25-19) inside the America First Event Center.
Stacey Hone led the Thunderbirds offensively with 16 kills on a .448 hitting percentage. She also had two service aces and helped out on three blocks. Reagan Ashby had 10 kills and hit .316 in the match. Corrin Peterson had 40 assists and Sarah Gasper had 13 digs.
As a team, Southern Utah hit .330 while holding Montana to a .132 hitting percentage. They had 53 total kills and seven blocks.
The Thunderbirds held a sizable 9-4 lead early in the first set, but would go on to lose the set 25-22. The Grizzlies chipped away at the lead until they were able to string together a couple of scoring runs, including a 5-0 run to close out the set.
The T-Birds opened the second set with a 4-0 run and flipped the script on the Grizzlies. Another couple of runs eventually would put them up 15-5 over Montana. They would go on to easily win the set 25-12 and tie the match at one set apiece.
The third set started out a lot closer, but with a two-point lead the T-Birds would put together a 5-0 scoring run to make it 16-9 SUU. Things would go back and forth until the Thunderbirds put together a 4-0 run to close out the set 25-15 and go up 2-1 in the match.
While the fourth set was tightly contested most of the way through, the Thunderbirds led the entire time. Leading it 19-15, Southern Utah would go on a 4-0 run to make it 23-15 and eventually close out the set 25-19 and pull out the 3-1 win over the Grizzlies.
The Thunderbirds and the Grizzlies will match up again Monday, Feb. 8 at 6:00 p.m.
Story courtesy of SUU Athletics
Photo by: Mitchell Quartz
