Michigan State volleyball kept rolling Wednesday afternoon, sweeping South Carolina 25-14, 25-12, 25-13 in its final Allstate Big Ten/SEC Challenge Week match inside the Crisler Center in Ann Arbor.
The Spartans are now 4-0 to start the season, and they’ve done it in back-to-back years for the first time since 2011-12. South Carolina fell to 3-1.
MSU controlled the match from the start and backed it up with the numbers that usually tell the whole story. The Spartans hit .463 and held the Gamecocks to .048, while finishing with advantages in kills, 43-23, total blocks, 11-3, digs, 36-28, and service aces, 8-3.
Senior outside hitter Alanna Bankston delivered the biggest offensive performance of the afternoon, piling up a career-high 18 kills and hitting .548. Her previous best was 10. Junior middle blocker Carmen Waye added 11 kills on .688 hitting without an error and matched senior middle Zora Hardison and redshirt sophomore setter Malayah Long for the team lead with five blocks.
Long also ran the offense with 35 assists and tied her career high with five service aces, while senior outside hitter Karolina Staniszewska led the Spartans with 19 digs. Redshirt sophomore defensive specialist Sarah Vellucci added eight.
Michigan State set the tone early in the first set. After three straight Bankston kills, a block from Long and Waye, a Waye kill and a South Carolina attack error pushed MSU ahead 6-1, the Gamecocks burned a timeout.
The Spartans came out of it with a Schneider ace, then a Long kill for an 8-1 lead. South Carolina answered with a 7-5 stretch to trim the margin to 14-10, but Hardison stopped that push and MSU never let the set get closer than five again.
Bankston and Waye helped fuel another burst, and Long finished the frame with a service ace before Waye put it away, 25-14.
The second set looked even more decisive. MSU jumped out 3-0 and then used a 4-1 run featuring back-to-back Long aces and another Long-Waye block to make it 7-1.
South Carolina cut the deficit to five, but Bankston took over again with three kills in a row, and a Hardison-Long block forced a timeout with Michigan State up 14-6. Bankston’s 12th kill sent the teams to the media timeout at 15-7, and the Spartans kept their foot down from there.
A 5-1 run, including two more Long aces and kills from Waye, Bankston and Ogden, made it 20-8. Bankston finished the set with her 16th kill, closing it 25-12.
The third set had a little more give-and-take at the start, but Michigan State still separated when it needed to. After South Carolina pulled within 9-8, Bankston and Staniszewska answered to push the lead back to three.
Waye’s kill made it 15-11 at the media timeout, and the Spartans then scored twice more with a Bankston ace and a Staniszewska kill to force another Gamecock timeout at 17-11. MSU kept stretching the margin, reaching 20-11 on a Waye kill and two South Carolina errors.
A final 4-0 run, capped by a Ky Clayton ace, a Hardison-Ogden block and a Hardison kill, set up match point, and the match ended on a South Carolina service error after a block, 25-13.
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