Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Faulkner defeats Nuggets in 4 in XU season opener

NEW ORLEANS (Aug. 23) — Xavier University of Louisiana, despite career highs of 10 kills by Jodi Hill and 22 digs by Darian Harris, lost its women's volleyball season opener, 24-26, 25-22, 25-22, 25-10 to Faulkner on Saturday.
    
The Lady Eagles (2-0) became the first to defeat the Gold Nuggets in their Convocation Center. Xavier was 9-0 in the facility last season and — including four 2012 victories in its previous venue, The Barn — had a school-record 13-match home winning streak.

Faulkner also snapped the Gold Nuggets' school-record 17-match regular-season win streak.

Box Score
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Sarah Ford had 11 kills, and Sarah Stout-Dubberley and Brittnay Renfroe had 10 apiece for Faulkner. Lindsay Ortner had 14 digs, and Stout-Dubberley and Cassie Bailie had 12 apiece.
    
Claudia Haywood had eight kills, Jelena Vujicic seven and CeCe Williams six for Xavier. Williams had 13 digs. Franziska Pirkl had 24 assists, nine digs and served two of the Gold Nuggets' four aces.
    
Hill's previous high for kills was nine, achieved twice last season. Harris had a pair of 20-dig matches as a freshman in 2012. Both are juniors.
    
Xavier got kills from Haywood, Vujicic and Jada Broussard to rally from a 21-17 first-set deficit. The Nuggets led 5-1 in the second set before Faulkner scored 15 of the next 21 points.
    
The Gold Nuggets did not lead in either of the final two sets. Faulkner opened the final set with a 9-1 run.
    
Faulkner outhit the Gold Nuggets .173 to .062 and had a 50-37 advantage in kills. Xavier outhit opponents .302 to .030 at home a year ago, and no Gold Nuggets home opponent hit higher than .098 in 2013.
    
Xavier will play Mobile at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Convocation Center.
    
NOTES:  Attendance was 305 — the largest for an XU non-conference match and the second-largest overall since the program resumed in 2010. Xavier averaged 143 per home date in 2013, and its largest crowd last season was 200 . . . Xavier is 1-6 in season openers and 2-5 in home openers . . . Faulkner leads the series 5-1 . . . The Gold Nuggets will play 11 of their first 14 matches at home.
 
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