#9 Spartans Advance for 6th-Straight Season with Defensive Display

  0 Braden Keith | December 03rd, 2016 | Big Ten, College - Women's Indoor, News

Match Stats

Michigan State won their opening round game at the NCAA tournament for the 6th-straight season, dominating Fairfield by an aggregate 75-42 score over a 3-set sweep.

No one Spartan compiled any massive offensive stats, as the team was able to rotate 12 players through their rotation to gain valuable experience that could become vital as the tournament wears on.

Alyssa Garvelink (7 kills, 1 error, 11 attacks, .545 percentage) and Chloe Reinig (7k, 2e, 12ta, .417) led Michigan State offensively. Garvelink chipped in 5 blocks as part of a 10-stuff performance for the Spartans.

Defensively, the Spartans held Fairfield to just a -.011 hitting percentage on the day with 24 errors to 23 kills. That’s the second-lowest percentage of the opening round of the tournament and one of only two teams with a negative percentage (Penn State held LIU Brooklyn to a -.040: 25 errors and 21 kills).

Fairfield fed their two stars early and often – Megan Theiler (12 k, 9e, 40ta, .075) and Skyler Day (5k, 6e, 28 ta, -.036) combined for 75% of the team’s total attacks. The two provided the lion’s share of the team’s offense all season – but only had 61% of the team’s total attacks en route to the MAAC Championship.

The Spartans will expect to tighten their rotation to 9-or-10 players on Saturday as they’ve done against top competition most of the season. Arizona will play to the Spartans’ defensive strength on Saturday: Arizona ranked just 108th nationally, and 7th in the Pac-12, in hitting percentage this season at .224.

This is the 3rd-consecutive season in which Michigan State will play a Pac-12 team in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. They’re tied in the all-time series against Arizona at 2-2.

Press Releases

Courtesy Michigan State Athletics:

SPARTAN SYNOPSIS
No. 15 Michigan State opened NCAA Tournament play with a 3-0 sweep of Fairfield on Friday night at Jenison Field House. MSU won its first round match in the NCAA Tournament for the sixth consecutive season, and improved to 25-8 on the year. MAAC champion Fairfield concludes its season at 25-6.

The Spartans posted a balanced offense, with five players between four and eight kills. The Spartans also had 10 blocks, the eighth time in their last ten matches that MSU finished with double-digit stuffs.

Autumn Bailey had eight kills and 11 digs, while both Alyssa Garvlink and Chloe Reinig had seven terminations, with Garvelink adding a team-best five blocks. For Fairfield, Megan Theiller had 12 kills and five digs.

MSU advances to the second round to host Arizona on Saturday at 7:30 pm. Tickets are still available through the Spartan ticket office, or at the door on Saturday evening.

QUOTABLE:
“We were really excited to have an opportunity to play in front of our home crowd, and we knew that Fairfield was going to fight and be pretty scrappy. They are well-coached and have tournament experience. We low that we’re going to have to clean up some things before tomorrow, when we play Arizona. I think we’re really excited for one last match on our home court this season and are very focused on being ready for Arizona..”

— Head Coach Cathy George

SET ONE: Brooke Kranda’s back-to-back aces began to allow MSU to separate, and using a balanced attack that saw the Spartans have five players with two kills, they held a 19-10 lead, hitting .350. Fairfield had six kills and seven errors as MSU built a 23-12 lead, but four of those errors were Spartan blocks. A Brooke Kranda kill – her third of the night – to get MSU to set point, and after a Spartan service error gave Fairfield the sideout, Holly Toliver picked up her first kill to close out the set, 25-14. Kranda and Bailey finished with three kills each, and Kranda, Fitterer and Garvelink each had a pair of blocks. MSU hit .393 in the set (14-3-28), limiting Fairfield to .000 (7-7-29). MSU sided out at 85%, and had four blocks.

SET TWO: Fairfield had a 4-3 lead before Reinig tied it up at 4-4, and Bailey followed with a shot from the left side that gave the Spartans the lead for good. After a 4-0 run, the Stags called time out, trailing 7-4; out of the break, MSU stretched its lead to 11-6, and kept pulling away until the lead was nine (18-9), when Fairfield called its second time out of the frame. Back-to-back kills by Reinig and Garvelink allowed MSU to win the race to 20, Autumn Bailey closed out the set for MSU with three straight kills, pushing her match total to eight and allowing the Spartans to take a 25-13 lead. Bailey’s five kills and four digs led MSU, and Garvelink had three terminations. MSU hit .417 to .036 for the Stags, and added a pair of blocks to push their match total to six.

SET THREE: MSU ran out to an 11-5 lead, hitting .429; the Spartans maintained that seven point lead, going to their bench and continuing to spread their offense throughout the floor. A 6-1 MSU run ended the third frame at 25-15, with Toliver compiling three kills in that span to close out the match. MSU hit a match-low .259 in the frame, lowering the Spartans’ overall hitting percentage to .354 for the match.
A b

TOP PERFORMERS

Autumn Bailey had eight kills and 11 digs, adding two blocks.
Alyssa Garvelink had seven kills, hit a team-best .545, and had a team-high five blocks.
Chloe Reinig had seven kills, adding three blocks and hit .417
STATS AND STORYLINES

MSU won its sixth consecutive first-round NCAA match.
The Spartnas will play a Pac-12 team in the second round for the third consecutive season. MSU owns a 2-2 record all-time against Arizona, with the last meeting a 3-1 MSU win in the first round of the 2011 NCAA’s in Texas.
MSU’s 25-8 overall record ties for the most victories in a season under head coach Cathy George. The 2012 team won 25 games and advanced to the Sweet 16.
Abby Monson had 10 digs, extending her streak to seven straight matches with double-digit digs.
Brooke Kranda had six kills, hit .333 and added three blocks and two aces.

Courtesy Fairfield Athletics:

EAST LANSING, Mich. – The Fairfield University volleyball team saw its 2016 season come to an end on Friday evening, dropping a 3-0 decision at ninth-seeded and No.1 5 nationally-ranked Michigan State in the NCAA Championship First Round at the Spartans’ Jenison Field House. The Stags’ Megan Theiller led all players with 12 kills in the postseason contest.

Fairfield’s MAAC Championship season concludes with a record of 28-6. The Stags’ first loss since Sept. 10 also ends the nation’s longest winning streak at 22 matches. The run was the second longest in program history (27, 1998) and included only the second 18-0 MAAC regular season in conference annals.

Michigan State (25-8) advances to meet Arizona in Saturday’s Second Round. The Wildcats swept Cleveland State in today’s opening match.

In addition to Theiller’s dozen finishers, Skyler Day added five, Megan O’Sullivan and Mayda Garcia each posted two, and Kaitlyn Fisher and Manuela Nicolini notched one apiece. Nicolini and Sydney Buckley shared setting duties and distributed five and 12 assists, respectively.

On the defensive end, Mallory Bechtold and Taylor Rudeen shared the team lead of eight digs. Theiller chipped in with five from the back row and Day added four. At the net, Day sent back a solo block while Fisher and Garcia also teamed up for a rejection.

The Spartans were led by eight kils from Autumn Bailey and seven apiece by Chole Reinig and Alyssa Garvelink. Rachel Minarick doled out 32 assists for Michigan State and Bailey had a match-best 11 digs.

In the opening set, Theiller led the Stags with three kills and Day added two finishers as well as a solo block. Fairfield never allowed an extended run by the Spartans but the Stags were unable to put together a stretch of the own larger than two straight points as Michigan State pulled away for a 25-14 decision.

The teams traded points to start the second frame with three early Theiller kills pushing Fairfield to a quick 4-3 edge. However, the Spartans responded to the slim deficit with five straight points to take an 8-4 advantage. Once again, the Stags could not engineer a run against their Big Ten foe as Michigan State steadily built its lead en route to a 25-13 win in the set and a 2-0 lead in the match entering the intermission.

The Spartans carried their momentum through the break and into the third set. Michigan State led by as many as nine in the stanza, taking a 25-15 victory to complete the 3-0 sweep.

The Stags’ 2016 season was highlighted by the program’s ninth MAAC Championship, tying Siena for the most in conference history. Fairfield’s 28 victories mark the third-most in program history and the most since the 1998 (35-2) and 1999 (30-4) teams put together back-to-back 30-win campaigns. O’Sullivan is Fairfield’s lone senior, graduating as a two-time First Team All-MAAC honor and MVP of the 2016 MAAC Championship, with the rest of the Stags slated to return in 2017.

 

Leave a Reply

avatar

About Braden Keith

Braden Keith

Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of VolleyMob.com. Braden's first foray into sports journalism came in 2010, when he launched a swimming website called The Swimmers' Circle. Two years later, he joined SwimSwam.com as a co-founder. Long huge fans of volleyball, when Braden and the SwimSwam partners sought an opportunity to …

Read More »

Don't want to miss anything?

Subscribe to our newsletter and receive our latest updates!