Gardner-Webb Volleyball 2012 Season Review
December 03, 2012 | Volleyball
Boiling Springs, N.C. - With nine new faces and a returning core of three seniors, four juniors and a sophomore, the Gardner-Webb volleyball set high expectations and looked to continue both its growth and improvement in the Runinn' Bulldogs' second season under head coach Leo Sayles in 2012.
However, the Gardner-Webb volleyball team got off to a slow start and struggled down the stretch of the regular season to finish the year at 9-22 overall and 4-10 in Big South Conference play.
Sophomore setter Heather Feldman, who was named to the Big South All-Academic Team, led the Runnin' Bulldogs with 1,052 assists on the year and was second in digs with 273, third in service aces with 21 and fourth in total blocks with 40.
Junior middle blocker Tyler Cockrell led GWU with a total of 354 points on the season, as she was tops on the team with 279 kills, a .279 attack percentage, and 90 total blocks.
Freshman libero Anna Pashkova made an impact from the very start of her career at GWU on the season, as she led the team with 427 digs overall and was second on the team in both service aces with 22 and set assists with 51.
After starting the season off at 1-10, which included losses at Ball State, versus Illinois State, versus VCU, at Davidson, at Elon, against Alabama and at home versus Wofford, Delaware State and UM-Kansas City, the Runnin' Bulldogs refused to quit, battling back to win six of its next nine matches, including posting a three-match winning streak midway through September.
Those six midseason wins came against North Carolina A&T, versus Tennessee Tech, versus Alcorn State, and at home against Asheville, USC Upstate and Radford, as the Runnin' Bulldogs improved to 7-13 overall and 2-1 in Big South play with the lone conference loss coming at home to the eventual 2012 Big South Champions in the Liberty Lady Flames.
However, after completing the regular season series sweep of Asheville with a 3-1 road win at the Justice Center in the middle of October, the Runnin' Bulldogs struggled down the final stretch of the season, dropping seven of its final eight contests, all of which were in conference play, and went 2-9 in the final two months of the season to miss out on the 2012 Big South Volleyball Conference Championship Tournament.
While graduating seniors and four year student-athletes Dominique Bray, Carolina Solano and Molly Rhyne are leaving the program, Coach Sayles and the Runnin' Bulldog volleyball program will look to grow from this season as GWU returns its four top statistical performers in Feldman, Cockrell, Pashkova and Erin Anderson from the 2012 season, as well as both depth and experience across the board in seniors Emily Holte and Amanda Murphy and a handful of sophomores that saw limited time on the court this season as true freshmen.
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