MAGNOLIA – The SAU Volleyball team close out the spring 2021 season this week with a pair of home matches, hosting rivals Arkansas-Monticello tonight before #7 Harding comes to town Thursday night.
Tuesday night's game, scheduled for a 6 p.m. start time, will feature head coach
Lindsey Parks and the Mulerider Volleyball program honoring a pair of seniors,
Morgan Gross and
Lauren Smith, for their four years in the program before the game.
Gross, an outside hitter from Bandera, Texas, enters this week having played in 277 career sets and 84 matches. She has racked up 654 kills, averaging 2.36 kills per set and owns an attack percentage of .167. She has produced 59 service aces, 262 digs and 144 total blocks (13 block solos, 131 block assists).
Smith, a middle from Heath, Texas, has played in 253 sets and 75 matches. She has 342 kills to her name, averaging 1.35 per set, as well as an attack percentage of .186. She has 156 career digs and 196 total blocks (23 solo, 173 assisted), averaging 0.77 blocks per set. Smith is sixth all-time in program history in block assists with 173 and seventh all-time in total blocks.
Her 0.77 blocks per set is fifth-best all-time, and her 0.82 blocks per set in 2018 is tenth-best in a season in program history.
In their first matchup on February 23
rd, the Muleriders and the Blossoms played to the full five sets in Monticello, with the Blossoms eking out a 15-13 fifth set to claim the match. In that game, Gross led all players with 16 kills, and teammates
Abby Bermudez and
Landry Rogers buried ten kills each.
Bailey Kirk added 20 digs and
Morgan Schuster added 47 assists.
Two weeks prior to that match, the Muleriders took on the Bisons in Harding, losing that match 3-0. The Bisons currently sit #7 in the AVCA Division II Poll. That previous matchup also saw Gross lead all players with 14 kills, hitting .320 in the process.
