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Sept. 2, 2003
HARRISONBURG, Va. – The Virginia volleyball team improved to 4-0 on the season with a 3-0 (30-26, 30-26, 30-26) victory over James Madison Tuesday (September 2) at JMU’s Sinclair Gymnasium. The Cavaliers are off to their best start since the 1999 season when the team opened the season with seven consecutive victories. With the loss, the Dukes fall to 1-3 on the season.
Virginia entered the match hitting an impressive .323 as a team and nearly matched that average by hitting .321 against James Madison with 48 kills and only 14 errors on 106 attempts. Second-year outside hitter Kristin Chaney (Johnston, Iowa/Johnston) led the team with a .600 hitting percentage against the Dukes and tallied a career-high 10 kills. She also added eight digs. Fourth-year outside hitter Paige Davis (Austin, Texas/Westlake) and third-year middle Alexis Geocaris (Wilmette, Ill./New Trier) both registered nine kills with Geocaris hitting .571 and adding three blocks. Davis notched a career-best six service aces, just one shy of the school record, and totaled 15.5 points in the match. First-year outside hitter Lindsay Osco (Rosharon, Texas/Elkins) also posted a career-high as she had eight kills to go along with five digs.
Fourth-year All-ACC libero Whitney Ashcraft (Yorktown, Ind./Burris) recorded a match-high 15 digs, and in the process, moved into eighth place on UVa’s career digs list with 1,033. First-year setter Kathleen Branagh (Lafayette, Calif./Campolindo) handed out a team-high 22 assists, while classmate Emily Kirkwood (Tampa, Fla./Plant) added 17.
Dana Jones led James Madison with 14 kills, while Emilee Hussack totaled 12 kills and a .391 hitting percentage. Krysta Cannon dished out 13 assists, while Lauren Ruzicka tallied 13 digs.
The Cavaliers return to action on Friday and Saturday, September 5-6 when they open the home portion of their schedule by hosting the Jefferson Cup. UVa begins play in the round-robin tournament on Friday (September 5) when it hosts Liberty at 7:00 p.m. in Memorial Gymnasium. On Saturday, Virginia will play Campbell and George Mason at 10:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m., respectively.