Djurdjevic Sets Digs Record As Tulane Volleyball Downs SMU, 3-2

Tulane News

NEW ORLEANS - Sometimes, motivation comes in many different forms. During Tulane University's Conference USA volleyball match against SMU Sunday afternoon in Fogelman Arena, it came from within and perhaps got an assist from one of the Green Wave's more vocal fans - long-time Greenbacker Mike Johnston.

With the score knotted at 12-all late in the fifth set, Johnston did his best Glenn Close impersonation from the Academy Award winning movie "The Natural". While Close' bonnet glowed from a back-lit sun to motivate Roy Hobbs out of his slump and shatter the scoreboard clock with a tape-measure home run, Johnson simply stood and shouted, "You're the defending Conference USA champions. Play like champions now."

Several members of the Tulane team acknowledged after the fact that they heard the charge, and whether they did or not, the response was three straight points to seal a 3-2 win over the Mustangs. Sophomore outside hitter Visnja Djurdjevic set a Tulane single-match record with 36 digs and led all players with a career-high 29 kills as the Green Wave capped a 2-0 weekend with a 23-25, 25-21, 25-19, 21-25, 15-12 win.

With the victory, Tulane ran its C-USA regular-season winning streak to 16 while improving to 7-4 on the year and a perfect 3-0 in league play. SMU, meanwhile, falls to 10-6 overall and 0-2 in C-USA action.

"Our fans are our biggest supporters," Djurdjevic said. "We always play better on our home court because of them. When you hear something like (Johnston's comment), you want to dig in and play your best."

With the match tied at two sets each, the see-saw battle continued until the very end and SMU led 8-6 at the half-way point of the set No. 5. The Green Wave rallied to tie the set at 9-9 and later at 10-all, before falling behind 12-10 on kills by SMU's Jessica Oliver and Kendra Kahanek

An SMU service error and an attack error by Jessica Oliver tied the set and forced Mustang head coach Lisa Seifert to call a timeout. It was during the break that Johnston bellowed his charge and the Green Wave came through by sandwiching kills by Vlaksovic and freshman middle blocker Marija Milosavljevic around an SMU attack error to come away with the win.

Djurdjevic broke the former single-match digs record of 35 set by teammate Jenn Miller against Dayton on Sept. 15, 2006. In addition, her kill total ranks tied for 13th in school history. Not to be outdone, senior setter Rachel Lindelow also cracked the Top 10 in Tulane single-match history as her career-best 68 assists against the Mustangs ranks fifth in the Green Wave record book. Tulane also set a team record with 112 digs in the match, and the Wave's 80 kills on the day ranks tied for 10th all-time.

Three Tulane players posted double-digit kill totals as Milosavljevic followed Djurdjevic's lead with a personal-best 22 while senior outside hitter Ksenija Vlaskovic was next with 19. Djurdjevic was also one of five Green Wave student-athletes to post 10-plus digs on the day as senior libero Jenn Miller had 22 and Lindelow had 19 while Vlaskovic and senior defensive specialist Jaye Loyd tallied 13 apiece.

Milosavljevic led all players with a .528 attack percentage after committing just three errors in 36 swings and tied for team-high block honors with five block assists. Junior middle Lindsey Shepard, meanwhile, had two solo stuffs and three block assists.

The Green Wave dominated in several statistical categories, posting 80 kills to SMU's 43, tallying 73 assists to the Mustang's 39 and recording 112 digs to the visitor's 97. SMU, however, out-blocked Tulane 19.0-10.0 and had 10 aces to the Green Wave's three. In addition, Tulane committed 10 service errors while SMU had just two.

"We were still very inconsistent, which is a problem we've had over the last couple of weeks, but it was better," first-year Tulane head volleyball coach Sinisa Momic said. "I think SMU stepped it up when they saw their chances and they played pretty steady. What we tried to focus on today was to improve our defense and our blocking. Our floor defense was really good compared to the way we played before, but our problem was our blocking compared to their blocking.

"Fighting through it is what pulled us through again. Now, we're just waiting on keeping the fight in us but also playing better in both offense and defense together."

Tulane appeared to take control of the match early on as the Green Wave rolled out to a 9-3 lead. SMU, however, kept its composure and stayed within striking distance. Every time Tulane tried to make a push, the Mustangs answered and used a 6-1 rally over the last seven serves to take a 1-0 advantage in the contest.

The two teams traded the first 20 points of the second set, and with the score knotted at 10-all, SMU took a two-point lead at 12-10. The Mustangs later led by a pair later on at 17-15, but from there, Tulane used a 3-0 lead to take an 18-17 advantage and never trailed the rest of the way en route to a four-point win.

It was a similar story in the third set as the two teams battled to an 8-8 tie early on before Tulane began pulling away. The Green Wave used a 6-2 rally to take a four-point lead and outscored the Mustangs 11-9 the rest of the way to take a 2-1 advantage in the contest.

Tulane jumped out to an early 7-5 lead in set No. 4 before SMU rallied to tie the set at 8-8 and eventually took a 16-15 lead midway through the stanza the Mustangs would not relinquish. The Green Wave remained within striking distance for most of the remainder of the set, but SMU scored the final three points of the frame to set up the fifth and deciding set.

"We were able to come back a couple of times already this year, but the problem is that we're getting down like that," Momic said. "We have to get tougher. We have to be tougher mentally and to keep playing at the same high level. It's still on and off. I think SMU played good defense, but we stuck with them, out-dug them at the end and kept fighting. We made some errors that we shouldn't have, but we fought through it and came out on top."

Dana Powell led the Mustangs with 11 kils while Kahanek and Oliver finished with nine each. Sidney Stewart wsa one of four SMU players to post double-digit dig totals and led the team with 26. Kelli Becerra was next with 20 while Kathryn Wilkerson had 18 and Powell tallied 16. Bacerra paced SMU with 34 assists and Kahanek led all players with three solo stuffs and nine block assists.

The Green Wave return to action on Thursday, Oct. 1, when they travel to Nacogdoches, Texas, for a 7 p.m. showdown against Stephen F. Austin. The match against the Lady Jacks is one of three contests Tulane will play in the state of Texas next week as the Wave will play at Houston on Oct. 2 and at Rice on Oct. 4. Tulane's next home match is slated for Wednesday, Oct. 7, when the Green Wave play host to C-USA foe Southern Miss at 7 p.m. in Fogelman Arena. For ticket information, contact the Tulane Athletics Ticket Office at 504-861-WAVE.

QUOTES FOLLOWING TULANE VOLLEYBALL'S 3-2 WIN OVER SMU

TULANE HEAD COACH SINISA MOMIC

Overall thoughts on the match

"We were still very inconsistent, which is a problem we've had over the last couple of weeks, but it was better. I think SMU stepped it up when they saw their chances and they played pretty steady. What we tried to focus on today was to improve our defense and our blocking. Our floor defense was really good compared to the way we played before, but our problem was our blocking compared to their blocking. Some of that was us not setting our block in the right spot and not technically executing our block well, so we had a lot of touches but the ball was going all over the place. The second problem was our hitters have to make better choices of where they hit. If they have a big blocker in front of them, they don't need to try and hit it through the big block. Fighting through it is what pulled us through again. Now, we're just waiting on keeping the fight in us but also playing better in both offense and defense together."

On the record-setting performance of Visnja Djurdjevic

"She's done it already a few times this year. That is the player she is. She can do that all the time. It's a matter of her being ready to play and do this for her team because she's capable of doing it."

On if he heard Mike Johnson's comment from the stands

"I heard it. I don't know if the girls heard it. Maybe they did. I hope they did. Maybe we'll start traveling Mike with us."

On being able to rally late to earn the five-set win over SMU

"We were able to come back a couple of times already this year, but the problem is that we're getting down like that. We have to get tougher. We have to get tougher mentally and to keep playing at the same high level. It's still on and off. I think SMU played good defense, but we stuck with them, out-dug them at the end and kept fighting. We made some errors that we shouldn't have, but we fought through it and came out on top."

On dropping the first set despite SMU having just six kills and a .000 attack percentage

"That's because we had 16 unforced errors. We gave them that first set. If you win the first set, you have that mental edge. I think we had five serving errors, two ball-handling errors and seven hitting errors. The hitting errors continued through the match, but at least we stabilized our serving and defense. That is what pulled us out through this one. Now we know that we can be good offensively and defensively. We just have to put it together."

On who else stood out in Sunday's win over the Mustangs

"Marija came up with 22 kills. The last match, it was Milica. We have to have both of them scoring at the same time. Then, we can start to beat teams if three or four instead of going through this every time."

TULANE OUTSIDE HITTER VISNJA DJURDJEVIC

On if she heard Johnson's comment late in the fifth set

"I heard him say it. Our fans are our biggest supporters. We always play better on our home court because of them. When you hear something like that, you want to dig in and play your best."

On her record-setting performance against the Mustangs

"We had some long rallies and I had positive stats because I had so many sets and felt compelled to do my best to put the ball down. The key to our win was our defense. Jenn (Miller) and I try to play defense as fast as we can to get us into our offense quicker. That was the key to our win in the fifth set."

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