Solid defense and five players with at least five kills helped the Ole Miss volleyball team to a 3-0 win against Belmont Thursday night at the Gillom Sports Center in the first match of the Rebel Classic.

With the win, the Rebels improved to 8-1. They will face Buffalo at 11 a.m., today followed by Southern Miss at 5:30 p.m., to close out the tournament.

Ole Miss led the first set 9-7, but went on a 16-8 run to close out Belmont 25-14. In the second set, the Rebels jumped out to a 13-5 lead, before Belmont called timeout.  The Bruins never got closer than six, as the Rebels hit .467 in that set to finish it off 25-15 and earn a 2-0 lead in the match.

Belmont tried to push the match to a fourth set. They trailed 20-17, but won five of the next six points to take a 22-21 lead. The Rebels gained their first match point (24-23) on an attack error from Belmont, but the Bruins staved off that and another match point, before Ty Laporte notched back-to-back kills at 25-25 to give the Rebels the set 27-25 and the match.

Quick hits
•Ole Miss had 57 digs, an average of 19 digs per set

• Three players finished with double-digit digs. Kristen Brashear had 14, Caroline Adams tallied 12 and Kate Gibson recorded 11.

• Ty Laporte led the Rebels with nine kills on a .312 clip. She also added four blocks.

• Aubrey Edie tallied six kills on a .625 clip, passed out 29 assists and added nine digs and two block assists.