Box Score

Photo Gallery (images by Austin McKeon)

San Francisco, CA -- All year the Academy of Art University women's volleyball team has put multiple attackers on display, spreading the ball around enough to put three different players over the 200-kill mark on the season. But that doesn't happen without a good setter directing traffic, and freshman Rachael Smith continued to stand out with 42 assists en route to the Knights second sweep this season against Notre Dame de Namur, winning 25-21, 25-20, and 25-22.

“Tonight I think we saw a lot of fight. We got off to some slow starts in each of our sets, but we did a great job of regrouping," said head coach Ed Jackson. "We came back, got ahead, put a lot of pressure on them, and we did a great job of scoring when we needed to so that's what gave us a straight-set win tonight.”


The sweep didn't come easy for the Urban Knights, as Wednesday's matchup was a stark difference to their dismantling of the Argonauts in mid-October. The first set started out well, as Brittany Ulmer got an easy ace for the first points of the night. But the rest was far from cut and dry. The Argos battled back to take an 8-7 lead, but ART U answered with a 6-0 run, forcing a timeout. NDNU then tied it up again at 16-16 on a run featuring back-to-back aces, but the Knights answered every point the opposition with a couple of their own and pulled off a 25-21 win in the first set.

The Knights got the first kill of the second set as well, using a well placed kill from Lindsay Elgin to get things started. However, that lead didn't las for long as back-to-back kills from Paulina Akiona made it 6-3 in favor of the Argos. Jennifer Jasper got two consecutive kills to make it 12-7 NDNU, forcing Jackson to take a timeout. That's when the Knights mounted their counterattack, tying it up at 13-13 before taking the lead and never giving it up for the rest of the set. Angela Heath had two straight kills to force a timeout by Notre Dame at 20-17, and another to force set point, setting up an ace from Jordan Cotton to make it 2-0 Urban Knights.

Notre Dame de Namur wouldn't go down without a fight, as they sprinted out of the gate in the third set, taking a 6-0 lead to start it off. After Jackson took a timeout, the Knights clawed their way back into contention, notching four straight points to make it 6-4 and using three straight kills from Brittany Ulmer to tie the game at 10-10. The two teams traded two-point runs until the Knights broke a 17-17 tie with four straight. With their chances running down, NDNU pushed the Knights until the end, making it 23-21 at one point before Ulmer closed it out with a kill to secure the sweep.

"When we control the ball well and get it in the target area, we can distribute the ball to multiple hitters and it makes it really hard to defend," said Jackson. "That led to a good hitting percentage. We hit .275 as team and had 45 kills which is a great performance throughout the match."

Ulmer, Heath, and Elgin each had 11 kills for ART U, with Ulmer's .529 percentage leading the way. Heath had her best night in a while, hitting .474 against the Argos defense. Taylor Suchy came close to being the fourth Knight in double figures with eight kills. Janelle Burnett had 19 digs, and sophomore Midori Le joined in making some spectacular digs, adding 12 of her own. Smith's 42 assists made it her 10th game this year with 40-plus assists, giving her 905 for the year with one game to play.

“I think I did really well tonight," said Smith. "Alanna and I have been working on becoming a smarter setter and looking to the other side before choosing how to set my hitters so I think I'm getting a lot smarter with the game. My setting has been getting more consistent all year so I'm proud to say that. I finally got 14 assists per set so that's super exciting.”

Wednesday night also marked Elgin becoming the third Urban Knight with 200-plus kills this season, putting her at 210 for the year and joining the ranks of Suchy (224) and Heath (211). Elgin has excelled this year, especially during conference play, where she has averaged 2.69 kills per set as opposed to her 2.16 per set in non-conference play. The Knights also have six players with over 100 kills, further evidence of the multiple weapons they have shown this year. They will have one more chance to show those off at Saturday's season finale with Fresno Pacific.