Morton Earns All-Tournament Honors

Sunday, September 14

Manley Field House

11:00 a.m.

Syracuse University

Army

Junior Sarah Morton garnered all-tournament honors after tallying 35 kills and 17 total blocks in four matches.

9/14/2008 1:45:02 PM | Volleyball

Box Score

Boxscore

SYRACUSE, N.Y. – Junior Sarah Morton was selected to the all-tournament team following the conclusion of the Big Orange Tournament Sunday afternoon. Morton posted eight kills and three solo blocks in a 3-0 setback to the Black Knights of Army in the final game of the tournament.

“We started off good on Friday with a win against Northeastern,” assistant coach Carol LaMarche said. “Then we faced Siena who has always been a good team, but we have beaten them in the past. We came out with the wrong mindset that we could get an easy win and they were able to take advantage of our overconfidence. We tried to regroup before Ohio last night and we played the best match we have this year.

“Then we faced Army and they are a very good team. Hopefully we take away from this weekend that we need to be more mentally prepared. These are all good learning lessons before we get into BIG EAST play.”

Freshmen Noemie Lefebvre and Hallie Morse also contributed offensively. Lefebvre was second on the team with seven kills and Morse led the team with 22 assists. Defensively, Lefebvre led the team with nine digs, while freshman Ashley Williams added six digs and junior Kacie MacTavish and senior Marissa Kanemura contributed five digs each.

The Orange came out ready to play in the third and final set. Morton started the set off with three kills and the Orange was leading by as many as four points through the entire frame. The Black Knights, however, were not going to be denied a win and fought back to tie the set, 23-23. Two Orange errors later, the Black Knights won their third match of the tournament.

Morton tallied 35 kills and 17 total blocks in four matches this weekend on her way to grabbing all-tournament honors. She eclipsed the 100 kills mark already this season in the match versus Army and has a total of 106. She leads the team with 45 total blocks, including 11 solo.

The Orange closes out its weekend in a regular season match against Akron this afternoon at 3 p.m. Akron is 3-4 so far this season. After cancelling a trip to the Louisiana-Lafayette Invitational due to weather concerns, Akron was added to the Orange schedule.

Big Orange Tournament All-Tournament Team

Co-MVPs: Ellen Herman (Ohio) and Jamie Clark (Army)

Michelle Jantsch (Ohio)

Briana Stremick (Army)

Caitlin Tittl (Northeastern)

Burgandy McCurty (Siena)

Sarah Morton (Syracuse)