K-State made a gigantic splash down in South Beach, as the Wildcats swept the Florida A&M Rattlers in the first game of the Hurricane Invitational at James L. Knight Sports Complex Friday Night.
The Wildcats started set one scoring six straight points and eventually dominating Florida A&M 25-8 in the set. The Rattlers ended set one with seven errors off of only three kills while K-State produced nine kills while only producing two errors.
After a 25-11 K-State victory in set two, the Wildcats were in a dog fight with the Rattlers in the third set, having a tied score seven times.
Coming off a 13-13 tie, the Rattlers committed five errors down the final stretch and the Wildcats managed to come up with 12 kills in the process, finishing off Florida A&M 25-19 to claim the clean sweep.
K-State found all sorts of openings on the court, having 37% of their attacks successful and producing 34 total kills.
“I thought we were consistent,” K-State head coach Suzie Fritz told K-State Sports. “I liked our mentality, and we stayed together. I was very pleased on how very low-error we were for the first match of the year. Sometimes, that first one, you get the juices flowing a little bit and you try to do too much. I thought we did a good job of simply serving it in, hitting it in, making them play long enough – not hurting ourselves.”
Brooke Sassin lead the Wildcats with 10 kills and 17 total attacks while Katie Brand produced 22 assists and six digs.
“That has been what we’ve been getting from (Sassin) every day,” Fritz said. “She has been tremendously consistent.”
Bryna Vogel added 7 kills off of 14 attacks along with Katie Reninger producing six kills off of 12 total attacks.
Defense was the defining moment in this game, as the Wildcats held Florida A&M to an attacking percentage of 8.3% and 25 kills. The Rattlers produced 18 errors compared to K-State’s eight on the night, causing them to never lead in the game.
Ginna Lopez and Deija Martin lead Florida A&M with seven kills each, Lopez coming off of seven attacks and Martin with eight attacks.
2014 Mid Eastern Athletic Conference Rookie of the Year, Pamela Soriano, struggled on Friday, only producing four kills out of 18 total attacks and producing five errors.
K-State will play Illinois State (0-1) and the University of Miami (1-0) tomorrow in Coral Gables, Florida. First serve between the Wildcats and the Redbirds begins at 9:30 a.m and first serve against the Hurricanes will begin at 6:30.
