Box Score
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - The first blow in the 2008-09 SunTrust River City Rumble has been struck.
The University of North Florida women's volleyball team played its best match in almost two years in front of a record-crowd of 1,109 at UNF Arena on Tuesday night and took down cross-town rival Jacksonville, 3-1 (18-25, 25-18, 25-21, 25-23) in UNF's home opener. Sophomore Kaley Read led the Lady Ospreys with 16 kills, marking the fourth consecutive match she finished in double-figure kills. She also tied her season-high with five blocks.
UNF (3-3, 1-0 Atlantic Sun Conference) charged an already-electric atmosphere by battling back after falling in the first set by out hitting the Dolphins the rest of the way. The Lady Ospreys also ripped off seven aces for the match, led by junior Agata Dawidowicz's four.
"Even though we didn't win the first set, we were competing well against a solid JU team," head coach Kevin Campbell said. "The crowd really helped our momentum. Everybody did what they needed to do tonight and played well together."
The Lady Ospreys leaped out to an 8-2 lead in the second set and never looked back. The run was led by Dawidowicz's four straight aces. JU was never able to pull to within five the rest of the way and was kept down by senior Bary Rasmussen and sophomore Marshay Greenlee's four kills each in the set.
Set three was little more in doubt after each team exchanged leads several times in the early moments. After knotting it at 17, UNF went on a 6-1 run to effectively seal the win and take a 2-1 match advantage. Despite hitting just .056 in the set, the Lady Ospreys held the advantage in possession with a 61 percent sideout percentage compared to the Dolphins' 51 percent clip.
JU (2-4, 0-1) came back with a little more ferocity in the fourth set and made it look as if the match was going to five sets. The Dolphins took a four point lead at 13-9 after taking advantage of key UNF attack errors. But the Lady Ospreys didn't show any signs of backing down and retaliated to tie it at 16 on a run that was jumpstarted by two kills from Dawidowicz.
The Lady Ospreys eventually took a 19-17 lead, but it didn't last long with two consecutive attack errors by UNF. The score continued at a deadlock until it reached 23 all, when sophomore Danielle Lerch fired a kill on a set from sophomore Madie Belvin to put UNF up by one. JU handed the Lady Ospreys the match when the Dolphins' Abby Gruenbacher ended it on an error.
"We can be competitive with anyone in the conference if we play like we did tonight - which is consistent," Campbell said.
Rasmussen, who has been a thorn in JU's side her entire career, continued that trend and finished with 11 kills, two blocks and two digs. Dawidowicz also ended up with 11 kills and seven digs. Belvin recorded 39 assists, which is a season high for a four- set match and had a double-double with a season- high 18 digs.
UNF defeated JU for the first time since 2006 and has now won three of its last four matches. The Lady Ospreys won their 11th consecutive conference opener.
UNF will look to continue the positive momentum at 7 p.m. on Friday when it takes on Kennesaw State in an Atlantic Sun Conference match at UNF Arena. Live stats will be available on UNFOspreys.com.
