Gophers Win Diet Coke Classic with Sweep Over Oral Roberts

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Schedule

Sep 21

5:00 PM

Volleyball

at Marquette

Sep 25

7:30 PM

Volleyball

vs Michigan State

Sep 28

2:00 PM

Volleyball

vs Rutgers

The No. 7 University of Minnesota volleyball program earned a 3-0 win over Oral Roberts, tonight at Maturi Pavilion. With the win, the Golden Gophers won the annual Diet Coke Classic when it swept both the Golden Eagles tonight, and Clemson Thursday. It also closed out the Gophers' nonconference season. Minnesota enters the Big Ten season with a 6-2 overall record.

Minnesota had a well balanced attack as five Gophers had eight or nine kills. Stephanie Samedy, Alexis Hart and Regan Pittman all had nine kills, while Taylor Morgan and Adanna Rollins both had eight. Kylie Miller added 31 assists, three aces and seven digs. CC McGraw collected a match-best 19 digs. In all, Minnesota had all 15 student-athletes see action in tonight's win.

As a team, Minnesota hit .333 and had 46 kills, seven blocks and 56 digs. The Gophers held the Golden Eagles to 24 kills, four blocks and 47 digs. Minnesota also held a 7-0 lead on aces.

Notables
-Middle blocker Shea Rubright garnered her first blocks of her Golden Gopher career. Rubright came into the match in the first set and recorded back-to-back blocks at the 23-15 and 24-15 points. It was her second collegiate appearance with the first coming against Florida State.
-Tamara Dolonga made her collegiate debut when she came in to serve during the third set. She and Lauren Litzau both saw action in tonight's match, which marks all 15 Golden Gophers seeing action this season.
- Minnesota is now 59-8 all-time in the Diet Coke Classic, dating back to 1996.

Quotables
Hugh McCutcheon on closing out the nonconference season: "It was a robust first few weeks that's for sure, but I thought they held up pretty well. There were some really valuable lessons that we've learned that we've been able to implement and hopefully we're in a good space moving forward."
CC McGraw on the nonconference season: "I think the first couple matches we realized we had a couple things to clean up, and I think we did really well at that. We intentionally try to load up our preseason schedule so it's pretty tough, but we found a way to grind through it and now we're definitely ready for Big Ten season."

Up Next
Minnesota opens the Big Ten season next weekend when Indiana and No. 21 Purdue come to town, Sept . 27-28. Both matches are slated for 7 p.m. starts at Maturi Pavilion.

How they won the set:
First Set: Minnesota had 17 kills in the first set, including five from Hart to win the first set, 25-15. McGraw also added nine digs in the first set alone to solidify the set win.
Second Set: Minnesota jumped out to a 7-1 lead en route to a 25-9 set win. The Gophers held Oral Roberts to a -.077 hitting clip as the Golden Eagles had just five kills and seven errors in 26 attempts.
Third Set: The Gophers hit .500 in the third set when they had 16 kills and committed just one error in 30 attempts. Minnesota also added a 91 sideout percentage.

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