AUBURN, Ala. - The No. 25 Auburn Tigers look to defend home court and take all three matches in the War Eagle Invitational to begin the season 8-0.
The Tigers went into last week tied for the 29th spot in the AVCA Coaches Poll with the Florida State Seminoles. After the Tigers traveled to Tallahassee and defeated the Seminoles in four sets, Auburn moved into the top 25 for the first time in school history.
In order for the Tigers to stay inside the top 25, they will need to sweep the invitational in their matches against Middle Tennessee, Charleston Southern, and the Mercer Bears. Let's take a deeper look into each roster Auburn will have to face off against in Neville Arena.
Middle Tennessee: The Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders are the first opponent Auburn will face off against in the Invitational. The Blue Raiders are coming into the invitational winning their last two matches, both in three sets, against South Dakota State and Kent State.
The Blue Raiders offense is run through their three outside hitters Kayla Henley, Adri Rhoda and Laure Jansen. They all each have recorded 50 kills through the Blue Raiders five matches.
Senior setter Taylor Eisert comes into the invitational as the reigning Conference USA setter of the week. Eisert racked up 113 assists last weekend in their previous invitational.
Henley is leading Middle Tennessee in points, racking up 70 total. The 6’2” grad student will look to lead the Blue Raiders victory to extend their winning streak to three.
On the defensive side, the Blue Raiders are led by another graduate student in Kaylee Oscarson. The 6’5” middle blocker has recorded 12 total blocks for an average of 0.71 per set.
Charleston Southern: The Charleston Southern Buccaneers will take on Mercer before getting matched up against the Tigers on Friday. The Buccaneers have won five of their eight matches this season, but are coming into the invitational dropping their last match against the College of Charleston.
The Buccaneers offense is headlined by Giada Pais-Marden, a 6’2” outside hitter from Cartigliano, Italy. Pais-Marden is leading the Buccaneers in points with a whopping 80 total, playing in just 22 of the Buccaneers’ 29 sets. Pais-Marden is averaging 3.64 points a set
Charleston Southern’s defense features Indigo Young and Brenna Rowland. Rowland, a freshman middle blocker, leads the team in blocks with 21 total. Young, a senior middle blocker, is not trailing too far behind with 17 total. The Tigers will look to fire their offensive attack through Akasha Anderson, Kyla Swanson and Bella Bell to neutralize the Buccaneers duo.
As a team, the Buccaneers have tallied 370 total digs, which is good for the No.1 spot in the Big South Conference and No.37 nationally. Angelika Rusin has accounted for 113 of those digs which puts her with the 23rd most in the country.
Mercer: The final team the Tigers will take on in the War Eagle Invitational is the Mercer Bears. The Bears are looking to get back on course this weekend, as they come into the tournament with a record at 2-4.
Mercer runs their offense through graduate student Kylee Quigley. Quigley is leading the Bears in kills with 56 on 146 attacks. Quigley is also leading the Bears in points with 73.5, 16.5 more than the next closest Bear.
Skylar Bumpers has made each of her attacks count as she has a hitting percentage of .473 on 74 total attacks. Bumpers' hitting percentage is the 17th best in the country. Bumpers also leads Mercer with 16 total blocks.
Defensively, Abbey Havrilla has dug out more balls than any other Bear with 73, almost two times more than any other Bear. The sophomore is averaging 3.65 digs per set.
Final Thought: The Tigers stack up against each team pretty favorably. Coming into the weekend, Auburn is No. 9 in the country and No.1 in the SEC in hitting percentage, hitting at an astounding .337.
The Tigers are also averaging 14.56 kills per set which is No. 2 in the Sec and No. 13 in the country. Akasha Anderson is only five kills away from notching her 500th career kill as well.
Overall, it should be an exciting invitational for Auburn volleyball. With the hype of being ranked for the first time in program history, combined with favorable matchups, the Tigers should keep on rolling on The Plains.
Auburn will kick off the weekend against Middle Tennessee State University at 6:00 p.m. CT on Thursday. Listeners can tune into WEGL 91.1 FM or visit WEGLFM.com to catch the game live.
