TAMPA - The University of South Florida volleyball team swept its second straight opponent on the weekend, as the Bulls took care of St. John's, 3-0, Sunday afternoon in the Rec Center in a match postponed from Oct. 4 due to a power outage.
USF (13-6, 6-3 BIG EAST) easily handled the Red Storm in the first set, 25-15, and dominated St. John's in the second, 25-11. The Red Storm (8-15, 1-6 BIG EAST) battled back and sent the third set into extra points, but the Bulls maintained their poise and earned the 29-27 victory. The win snapped a seven-match losing streak to the Red Storm.
Senior Marcela Gurgel led all players with 16 kills and added a team-high eight digs with four blocks, while senior transfer Pamela Luiz posted 13 kills and seven digs. Junior Mariana Thon handed out 20 assists, and senior Alli Arbogast had a match-high seven blocks.
The Bulls hit solid at the net on a .391 attack percentage, while limiting St. John's to a .104 clip. USF also held a sizeable advantage in blocks, 11-4, while the Red Storm were done in by 22 attack errors.
The day's action started with USF up, 3-1, from the Oct. 4 meeting. St. John's head coach Joanne Persico was called for a yellow card after the second serve of the afternoon, and from there the Bulls extended the lead to 10-5 on a kill by Gurgel. St. John's called a timeout, but back-to-back kills by Gurgel a little later in the match put the Bulls up by seven at 15-8.
After the Red Storm called another timeout, USF would push the lead to nine at 20-11 on a block by Arbogast and senior Jarka Havlickova. Gurgel helped get the lead into double digits with a block followed by a kill, and a service error on St. John's ended the match, 25-15.
USF came out swinging in the second set, going up 6-0 before St. John's ended the run. Arbogast and Luiz teamed for a block to make it 9-2, forcing the Red Storm to call its second timeout of the set. The duo again blocked an attack to push the score to 11-2, and after two straight points by St. John's, USF rattled off six straight points to push the set out of reach, 17-4.
Gurgel helped get the lead to 15 at 21-6 with a kill and a solo block, but the Red Storm took five of seven points near the end to get to 23-11. After junior Allie Boaz and Arbogast rejected a St. John's attack - Arbogast's fourth block of the set - Havlickova slammed home a kill to end the set, 25-11. USF held the Red Storm to a -.250 attack percentage during the set.
After St. John's won the first point for the second straight set - their only two leads on the afternoon - a service ace by Gurgel got USF on top early, 4-1, in the third set. Havlickova and Gurgel nailed down back-to-back kills that forced St. John's to call a timeout down, 11-6. Boaz and Argobast teamed up again for a block, the fifth point in a six-serve span that again had St. John's asking for a timeout down 16-9.
The timeout rejuvenated the Red Storm, as they began cutting into the lead, eventually getting the deficit down to two at 18-16. After head coach Claire Lessinger called the team's first timeout of the afternoon. Two straight attack errors on the Bulls tied it at 20-20.
The two squads would go back and forth from there, as Luiz and Gurgel would come through with a pair of kills that kept the Red Storm from gaining a lead late in the match. Luiz then posted two straight kills to end the match, 29-27. Gurgel and Luiz had eight and seven kills, respectively, in the third set alone, while Thon had 14 assists during that third stanza.
USF will play its third match in four days as the Bulls host Florida A&M Tuesday at 7 p.m. at The Corral before heading to Villanova Friday night.
