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TAMPA - - In front of a record crowd of 1178 that was loud from the first point until the last at The Corral, the University of South Florida (1-0) rattled off a 25-13, 25-11, 25-18 victory over Grambling State (0-1).
The Bulls were led by junior All-American Marcela Gurgel, as they cruised to the three set sweep over Grambling State to start the season off with a win.
Gurgel recorded a match-high 10 kills with no errors to go along with six aces, just one shy of her career-high. The Fortaleza, Brazil native hit at a .455 clip on the evening.
“Marcela's serve is pretty aggressive and when it's on, it's on,” said USF head coach Claire Lessinger. “She has the ability to go back there to that end line and score points for us. I thought overall, she did a great job tonight. She played with consistency all three games. I felt her trying to get her team going tonight.”
Junior Jarka Havlickova, like Gurgel, finished the night errorless while chipping in seven kills on only 12 attacks for a .583 hitting percentage. Havlickova also played well on the defensive side of the net by tying a match-high with two block assists.
Alli Arbogast added to USF's hitting percentage success by chiming in with a .462 mark. The junior middle blocker pounded out nine kills on 13 attempts, while filling the stat sheet with two digs, two block assists and a solo block.
Junior setter Brittany Castelmare did a great job for the Bulls by spreading the ball all over the floor throughout her 24 assists.
“I felt Brittany had a great pre-season and did a pretty good job tonight, but we can definitely get better,” said Lessinger.
As a team, USF outhit Grambling .321-to-.056 and tallied eight aces as a team to the Tigers' zero.
In the first set, USF and Grambling were knotted up at eight points apiece, but the Bulls charged out to a 12-2 run highlighted by two Gurgel aces and other difficult serves that made the Tigers' serve receive game a serious challenge.
At 23-13 in the first set, Gurgel connected on a kill to bring up set point, then the Bulls closed it out following an attack error by Grambling middle blocker Jovon Lewis.
Up a set, the Bulls came out strong in the second as well, taking the first three points off of kills by Havlickova and Arbogast with a block assist by those same two student-athletes sandwiched between. USF went on to hold a rather comfortable lead throughout the set and never trailed as they headed into the intermission up 2-0.
Out of the first five points USF won in the third set, three of them came from Arbogast kills. Following the solid play from the middle blocker out of St. Louis, the Bulls never looked back. At 9-6, the Bulls went on a three-point run that included two Gurgel kills and a Stephanie Augustavo ace that doubled up the Tigers on the scoreboard, 12-6.
Arbogast later closed out the match with her ninth and final kill of the night, sending the standing room only crowd filled with green and gold home happy.
“The atmosphere was unbelievable,” said Lessinger. “Our players got to live through history and even though we didn't play all that great tonight, the fans were great tonight.”
USF will look to continue their winning ways tomorrow during an afternoon/evening doubleheader that includes a 1 p.m. showdown against Eastern Kentucky (0-1) and then a test against Northeastern (1-0) at 7 p.m.
