Oct. 22, 2009

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ARLINGTON, Texas - Alicia Shaffer recorded 20 digs and UT Arlington collected 15.0 team blocks in a 25-19, 25-17, 29-27 victory over Southeastern Louisiana on Thursday night at Texas Hall for "Dig Pink Night" to stay perfect at home this season in Southland Conference matches. The win also marked UT Arlington head coach Diane Seymour's 50th career SLC victory.

The Mavericks (8-12, 4-4 SLC) improve to 4-0 at Texas Hall during SLC play while Southeastern Louisiana (6-13, 2-6 SLC) drops its sixth straight match.

"The main thing is that we won," Seymour said. "It wasn't pretty, but we won. A couple of bright spots for us was Alicia, and her ability to put up 20 digs, which is almost seven digs a set and we needed that. Our team also continued to block well, and I was happy about that."

Christy Driscoll had seven kills and equaled a season-high six blocks, Emily Shearin posted seven kills, a .500 hitting percentage and tied season-highs with three aces and eight blocks and Raegan Daniel added 21 assists, five kills, five digs and four blocks for the Mavericks.

"We are blocking well and that is something we work on a lot," Seymour said. "We have some kids that are very natural at it with some good size and are very athletic. On nights like tonight, when your offense isn't really clicking, it is very helpful to stop their offense with some key blocks."

The Mavericks used an 8-1 run in the first set to take a 15-9 lead after trailing 7-8. Bianca Sauls served UTA to five straight points during the run while Driscoll, Sauls and Amanda Aguilera all recorded kills along with four SLU hitting errors and an ace from Aguilera in the run.

UTA notched a first-set victory, 25-19, despite Southeastern's 15 kills compared to the Mavs' 11. Sauls and Aguilera each posted three kills in the opening set and Sauls tacked on five digs.

In the second set, the opening point went to the Lady Lions and then it was all Mavericks as UT Arlington never trailed after grabbing a 2-1 lead. Shaffer stepped up on the defensive end with nine digs and Daniel added four kills on eight attacks in the frame to lead the Mavs to a 25-17 set victory.

"Coming into the match tonight we just had a mindset that we wanted to put them away and win," Shaffer said. "Although it wasn't our best match, we were still able to get it done and win the match."

The third and final set went extra points with seven lead changes and with the score tied on 13 occasions. The Mavs fought off two SLU set points with a block assist by Sauls and Shearin and later with an Aguilera kill. With the score knotted up at 27, an SLU hitting error and a kill by Shearin gave the Mavericks the third-set and match victory with a score of 29-27.

The Mavericks will return home on Saturday to face Nicholls (9-12, 3-4 SLC) for a 3 p.m. first serve at Texas Hall.

MATCH NOTES:
UT Arlington improves to 19-4 all-time against Southeastern Louisiana with a perfect 11-0 record in matches played in Arlington... UTA has won four of the last five and 12 of the last 14 matchups with the Lady Lions... UT Arlington teamed up with the Side-Out Foundation for its "Dig Pink Night" which is to support breast cancer awareness... The Mavericks raised $2,400 last year and had a goal of raising $3,000 this year.

The Mavericks are 4-0 at home in SLC play for the first time since 2006 (started 7-0 at home in SLC competition).

Diane Seymour becomes the second UTA volleyball coach to win 50 career SLC matches... Seymour is now 50-44 in her sixth season as head coach... In her time as a student-athlete (4 years), assistant coach (8 years) and head coach, she has won 192 SLC matches... Janine Smith (1994-2003) is the only other UTA volleyball coach to win 50 SLC matches with a 131-54 record.

Alicia Shaffer led all players with 20 digs, which equals her previous career-high for digs in a three-set match... She also posted 20 digs last season in a three-set loss on the road against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (9/27/08)... It was Shaffer's fifth career 20-dig match and her third this season (25 at Sam Houston State, 21 vs. Arkansas State)... She has led the Mavs in digs seven times this season and 25 times in her career... Shaffer currently leads the Mavs and ranks ninth in the SLC averaging 3.49 digs per set.

Emily Shearin has hit at least .200 in all eight SLC matches while hitting .500 (7 kills - 0 errors - 14 attacks) on Thursday night... Shearin leads the SLC in blocks per set (1.41), ranks second in aces per set (0.41) and third in hitting percentage (.336) this season... Shearin recorded seven kills, which led the team along with fellow middle blocker Christy Driscoll... It is the first time this season that Shearin has led or tied for the team lead in kills.

Bianca Sauls recorded 13 digs against Southeastern Louisiana, her 10th double-figure dig total of the season and 27th 10-plus digs match of her career.