Little Rock Set For First Home Matches of 2015

Match Notes (PDF)

Match 12: Little Rock vs. Troy
Friday, Sept. 25 • 6:30 p.m.
Little Rock, Ark. • Jack Stephens Center
Live Stats | Live Video

Match 13: Little Rock vs. UT Arlington
Sunday, Sept. 27 • 12:00 p.m.
Little Rock, Ark. • Jack Stephens Center
Live Stats | Live Video

LITTLE ROCK – Little Rock volleyball (5-6, 1-0 Sun Belt) will open up its home schedule with a pair of matches against Troy (5-9, 0-2) and UT Arlington (11-3, 2-0) at the Jack Stephens Center on Friday at 6:30 p.m. and Sunday at noon.
 
FIRST SERVE

• Edina Selimovic was picked as the Sun Belt Conference's Offensive Student-Athlete of the Week on Monday.
• Selimovic leads the Sun Belt with a .385 hitting percentage and currently has the best career-hitting percentage in program history at .345.
• Priscila Almeida ranks 28th in the nation for digs per set.
• Little Rock extended its conference winning streak to 24 matches last Friday against Georgia Southern.
• Little Rock leads the overall series with Troy by a 10-2 margin and is 5-1 when playing in Little Rock.
• The Little Rock and UT Arlington series is tied 9-9, while the series in Little Rock is also knotted up at 1-1.
• Megan Mathis has recorded 30-plus assists in eight of 11 matches this season.
• Little Rock hasn't lost a home opener since 2010.

 
SCOUTING TROY (5-9 OVERALL, 0-2 SUN BELT)
Troy comes into Friday's match with Little Rock after two five-set losses to Appalachian State and Arkansas State. Troy started both matches with a 2-0 lead before falling in the final three sets.
Troy is led on offense by Blair Winston with 159 kills (3.00 per set) and a .174 hitting percentage. Setting the Troy hitters is Reina Terry with 335 assists (6.20 per set).
On defense, Troy is led by Ali Dowdall and Darby Griff. Dowdall has scooped up 257 digs for the year (4.67 per set) while Griff comes in with 60 total blocks (1.09 per set).
 
SCOUTING UT ARLINGTON (11-3 OVERALL, 2-0 SUN BELT)
Before visiting Little Rock on Sunday, UT Arlington will make a trip to Jonesboro to play the Red Wolves on Friday night. Coming into the weekend, the Mavericks won matches over Louisiana and Georgia State.
On offense, UTA has a couple of hitters to look at it in Stacey Koch (3.44 kills per set) and Qiana Canete (3.24). Koch has the second-highest hitting percentage in the conference at .381. Setting Canete and Koch is Cassidy Wheeler with 487 assists for the year (9.74 per set).
Defensively, Caitlyn Cooney comes in with 181 digs (3.62 per set) while Marisah Ingram has 62 total blocks (1.24 per set).
 
SERIES AGAINST THE OPPONENTS
Little Rock holds a 10-2 series lead over Troy and is 5-1 at the Jack Stephens Center. The last time Little Rock lost to Troy was in a four-set match on Oct. 6, 2012. Little Rock is currently on a four-match winning streak against Troy.
 
Little Rock and UT Arlington are knotted up at 9-9 overall and are also 1-1 in Little Rock. Little Rock is on a three-match winning streak against the Mavericks with the last loss coming in four sets on Oct. 26, 2013.
 
SUN BELT OFFENSIVE STUDENT-ATHLETE OF THE WEEK
Junior middle blocker Edina Selimovic earned Sun Belt Offensive-Student Athlete of the Week honors after registering a career-high 17 kills on 26 attempts with a .577 hitting percentage in Little Rock's sweep of Georgia Southern last Friday. Selimovic's .577 percentage is the best in a Sun Belt match so far this season. Selimovic now leads the Sun Belt with an overall .385 hitting percentage for the season.
Selimovic became just the second Trojan in program history to earn an offensive and defensive weekly award in her career. The last to accomplish this feat was Jelena Radovanovic in 2001.
 
DIGGIN' ALMEIDA
After tallying 15 digs in the Trojans' sweep of Georgia Southern, libero Priscila Almeida continues to average 5.00 digs per set, ranking 28th in the nation. Almeida ranks third in the Sun Belt and trails first place by less than half a dig. Her 38-dig performance against Memphis still registers as the third-most digs in a Division I match this season.
 
CONFERENCE WINNING STREAK
Little Rock extended the nation's second-longest conference winning streak to 24 matches with its 3-0 sweep at Georgia Southern. The Trojans' streak is two more than third-place Florida's 22-match streak.
 
A WIN AGAINST TROY WOULD…
…be the fifth consecutive year that Little Rock has won its home opener. The last time Little Rock lost its home opener was against former conference-foe Middle Tennessee State in 2010.
 
A WIN AGAINST UT ARLINGTON WOULD…
…be Little Rock's fourth consecutive win over the Mavericks.
 
SET FROM MATHIS
Through 11 matches, setter Megan Mathis has recorded 30 or more assists in eight matches this season. After 11 matches last season, Mathis had only recorded seven 30-plus assist matches. Last season, Mathis had at least 30 assists in every match against a Sun Belt opponent and put together an overall streak of 30 matches with at least 30 assists.
 
SUN BELT RANKINGS
Little Rock currently lays down the fourth-best overall hitting percentage and kills per set in the Sun Belt at .230 and 12.45, respectively. Little Rock's defense ranks in the top five with the third-most blocks per set at 2.29 and fifth-most digs per set at 14.74.
Though the Trojans have only played one Sun Belt match, Little Rock is at the top of the charts in conference-only stats when it comes to digs per set at 18.33 per set. Little Rock also ranks in the top five in hitting (.177), kills per set (13.67), opponent hitting percentage (.078), assists per set (12.00), aces per set (1.33) and blocks per set (3.00).
 
CAREER NUMBERS WATCH

• Almeida is 10 digs away from 200 for her career and season.
• At 350 total blocks for her career, Carolee Dillard needs 16 more to move into fourth-most all-time and second-most in the rally-scoring era at Little Rock.
• Kelsey Leech is 27 digs away from 500 and four aces away from 20.
• Mathis will top the 1600 mark for her career with two assists against Troy.
• Miona Milovanovic's next block will be her 75th.
• Selimovic currently has the best career-hitting percentage in the history of the program at .345.

UP NEXT
With its first home matches of the season out of the way, Little Rock will travel to Texas for its only match of the regular season with Texas State (Oct. 1) and its second match with UT Arlington (Oct. 3).