No. 14 Purdue left the Bahamas with hardware, and it did it in convincing fashion.
On Sunday, the Boilermakers swept No. 8 SMU to win the inaugural Paradise Invitational, the first collegiate volleyball tournament ever played internationally.
The championship match turned into a full-team showcase for Purdue. Grace Heaney paced the offense with 12 kills on 30 attacks, while also adding six digs and three blocks.
Middle blocker Kate Hansen delivered her strongest outing of the season, finishing with 10 kills on 19 attacks and four blocks. After a slow opening stretch, head coach Dave Shondell went to Hansen in the slide, and she made the most of those chances.
Purdue’s depth kept rolling from there. Mimi Mambu added 10 kills, Addy Tindall chipped in nine more, and Dior Charles anchored the net with five blocks.
Taylor Anderson ran the attack with 33 assists and nine digs, while Ryan McAleer and Elle Schara combined for 20 digs. MaryKate Scheumann also supplied a pair of key aces.
SMU had the better of the early action, but the Mustangs handed Purdue an opening by piling up five service errors in the first set. The Boilermakers settled in as the match went on and started turning the net into a problem for SMU.
That edge showed up immediately in the box score. Purdue finished with five blocks in the first set and four more in the second. The Boilermakers had just one block in the third, but they still closed strong, hitting .417 across the final two sets.
The sweep pushed Purdue to 5-2 on the season and sent the team back to West Lafayette for four straight home matches. The Boilermakers open that stretch against Albany on Thursday, Sept. 17, in the first night of the Stacey Clark Classic.
This trip also kept a clear trend alive for Shondell’s group. Since being swept by No. 11 TCU last weekend at Holloway Gymnasium, Purdue has not dropped a set, rolling past IU Indy, Houston and SMU.
The Boilermakers reached the Paradise Invitational final by sweeping Houston on Saturday afternoon. In that match, Tindall led the way with 22 kills, Mambu had 13 and Heaney added 10.
Anderson finished with 41 assists, McAleer collected 11 digs and Charles put up four blocks. Purdue also totaled 10 blocks and hit .311 for the day.
The bigger picture has been just as impressive. Purdue is undefeated in its two biggest events so far, sweeping No. 14 Texas A&M and beating Georgia in five sets in the Big Ten-SEC Challenge before going 2-0 in the Bahamas.
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