Georgia Sports Communications
October 4, 2009
For Immediate Release

ATHENS, Ga. – Junior outside hitter Erika Clark recorded her team-leading fifth double-double of the season with 13 kills and a season-high 20 digs to lead the Georgia volleyball team past Ole Miss, 3-1, on Sunday afternoon at the Ramsey Student Center.

Behind Clark's lead, the Bulldogs earned the victory with set scores of 25-14, 25-27, 25-18 and 25-18 to improve to 11-5 overall and 2-3 in Southeastern Conference play. Ole Miss fell to 6-10 overall and 0-6 in league action.

"We faced two very similar teams and two very good teams this weekend." McCartney stated about Georgia's matches against Arkansas and Ole Miss. "Mississippi may not look that way on paper, but they had the same start to SEC play that we did last year with Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee and South Carolina, where we started 0-4. We're going to see a different Mississippi team when we head to their place I'm sure of that. They are a quality team, so this was a good for us today.

Georgia led the match both offensively and defensively with 54 kills on a hitting percentage of .185 while tallying 14.0 blocks and 73 digs. The 14.0 blocks were the most by the Bulldogs in a four-set match this year, and the 73 digs tied the team's season-best total in any match. The Rebels finished the match with 35 kills on a .045 clip to go along with 10.0 blocks and 62 digs.

"The difference I thought that we made today was that we really centered our focus on a lot of goals – individual goals for different positions and team goals that allowed us to break up the match into little miniseries," McCartney said. "With those kinds of things inside of our system, we could focus less on our mentality and more just on our action. We just didn't play very passionately Friday night, and one of things I think we did was we focused on the emotion, the passion and all of the things that come along when you are in systems and efficiently playing. Today, we decided to make sure we made a conscious effort to think about manageable goals that were quantifiable. We met some and we didn't meet others, but in the end, I think it kept us focused for the match so I'm pretty pleased with that."

Clark's season-best 20 digs were a team-best topping her previous high of 17 at Long Island, and she also made 10 service receptions with no errors against the Rebels.

"Erika was our defensive leader for sure," McCartney said. "She did some good things offensively for us in a match where I thought Kathleen Gates was struggling just a little bit to find her set location. Erika had a phenomenal mindset going into this match and she was one of the strong leaders from Friday night too, so we relied on her leadership a little bit more today because of that. I think we got a lot of energy from it. I'm really pleased with her performance, and more than just her stat line, but her leadership."

Clarks 13 kills tied redshirt freshman outside hitter Michele Simmons for a match-best, and that total was a career-best for Simmons. Simmons joined freshman defensive specialist Adria Fecteau in making just their second career starts. Fecteau tallied 12 digs tying her career-best mark.

"It's so nice to be able to see the relationship of players sharing a position," McCartney said. "Michele made just her second start of her career and coming up with a team-high 13 kills was a huge part of what we were able to do today. She stepped up and measured really well. Adria Fecteau has just been rock solid with her focus, not only defensively, but with her energy and what she does on the floor."

Other notable performances by the Bulldogs against the Rebels include redshirt freshman opposite hitter Briana Bahr's 10 kills and career-high nine blocks, junior middle hitter Valentina Gonzalez's nine kills and eight blocks and sophomore libero Carla Tietz's 16 digs. Setter Kathleen Gates provided the Bulldogs with 43 assists.

Ole Miss was led in the match by Miranda Kitts and Katie Norris with nine kills apiece while setter Emily Kvitle notched a double-double with 25 assists and 12 digs. Rebel libero Morgan Springer provided a match-best 27 digs.

Sunday's match with concluded a four-match home stand for Georgia. The Bulldogs will now take to the road for their next two matches, and both those contests will be televised. On Friday, Oct. 9, Georgia will play Tennessee in Knoxville at Thompson-Boling Arena with first serve at 7 p.m. ET on SportsSouth, and on Sunday, Oct. 11, the Bulldogs will take on the Kentucky Wildcats in Memorial Coliseum at 1:30 p.m. That match will be televised locally in the Lexington area by CBS affiliate CWKYT.

"I'm excited because Kentucky is a ranked team and Tennessee is getting votes, and I think by the end of the year Tennessee will at least be a team that deserves to be in the top 25," McCartney said. "Kentucky is the only SEC team that nobody in our locker room has beaten. Certainly, Georgia's had some success early on in the program history, but there isn't a sole in our locker room that's beat Kentucky, so we are going to go up there with the mindset that we are going to pick a couple of teams off if we can and come back with some success for another decent home stand."