Nov. 4, 2005

Final Stats

HATTIESBURG, Miss. - With a 3-0 (30-18, 30-26, 30-16) win Friday night at the Southern Miss, the Thundering Herd volleyball team clinched its fourth-straight 20-win season and remains in first place in Conference USA with three matches remaining.

Marshall is now 20-5 on the year and 12-1 in Conference USA. By reaching the 20-win mark, the team established itself as the first to reach the plateau for four consecutive years at Marshall in the modern volleyball era. Twenty-plus wins four consecutive years had only been achieved one other time in program history when the squads from 1977-1980 pulled off the feat back before the current point system was in place.

The Thundering Herd was dominant once against as it posted a .366 hitting percentage for the match and held the Golden Eagles to a .090 mark for the match. Marshall had 57 kills for the match compared to just 25 for the Golden Eagles. With the loss, Southern Miss falls to 6-15, 0-12 in Conference USA.

"I'm very proud of this team tonight for staying focused and coming away with a win in a very, loud, tough environment," Marshall head coach Mitch Jacobs said. "Southern Miss is playing very hard for their first win and really pushed us, but our girls stayed focused and got the job done."

Once again, it was sophomore Kelly-Anne Billingy leading the way for the Thundering Herd. The standout from Trinidad is the defending AVCA National Player of the Week, so what did she do for an encore? Billingy put down almost eight kills per game with 23 in the match and a .656 hitting percentage.

Also in double-digits for the Herd, Amber Sims had 12 kills with a .391 hitting percentage and 6 block assists. Senior setter Katie Stein had 44 assists and Stephanie Cahill had seven service aces. Libero Maggie Arias led all players with 14 digs on the night.

The Thundering Herd will head to Orlando, Fla., tomorrow to prepare for Sunday's match against UCF. The Golden Knights were on a roll coming into the weekend before falling to East Carolina Friday night.

"There's no match more important to us right now than Sunday," Jacobs said. "They're a very dangerous team and have been playing well lately."

UCF comes into the match with a record of 7-14, 5-9 in C-USA. Marshall downed the Golden Knights 3-0 in Huntington earlier this season.