Horizon League Volleyball Release #3
Sept. 3, 2007
Volleyball Weekly Release #3
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. - Milwaukee freshman middle blocker Maddie Sueppel was named Offensive Player of the Week, while Valparaiso's Brittany Malicoat was awarded Defensive Player of the Week honors after the second week of Horizon League Volleyball action.
Offensive Player of the Week:
Maddie Sueppel
Milwaukee
Fr., Middle Blocker, Grafton, Wis.
Freshman Maddie Sueppel is the second straight player from Milwaukee to take home Horizon League Offensive Player of the Week honors (Leanne Felising was Offensive Player of the Week on Aug. 27). This past weekend, Sueppel helped the Panthers to a perfect 3-0 mark with wins over St. Francis (N.Y.) (3-0), Fordham (3-1) and Binghamton (3-0) while competing at the Western New York Invitational in Buffalo, N.Y. During the three matches, the freshman hit .448 with 35 kills, 67 assists and 12 blocks as she was named to the all-tournament team. Sueppel leads UWM on the season with a .397 hitting percentage and has made just nine errors.
Defensive Player of the Week:
Brittany Malicoat
Valparaiso
Jr., Libero, Elkhart, Ind.
Junior Brittany Malicoat is the first Valparaiso volleyball player to be named Horizon League Defensive Player of the Week. In three matches this past weekend, Malicoat directed the Crusaders to a 3-0 record at the Western New York Invitational in Buffalo, N.Y., as she recorded 56 digs during the three-match tournament. Against Binghamton, the Indiana native had a team-high 31 digs in the 3-2 win. Malicoat has led Valpo in digs in every match dating back to Nov. 4, 2005.
Other Top Performances from Around the League
Porshia Allen
Butler
So., Outside Hitter, Indianapolis, Ind.
Allen led the team with 4.79 kills per game while hitting .205 in four matches. She led the team with 12 kills and added 10 digs at Xavier on Tuesday before putting up a career-best 28 kills against Tennessee Tech in the Bulldogs' opening match of the Butler Invitational on Friday.
She led the team in kills in the final two matches of the tournament, going for 12 against Utah Valley and 15 against Northern Illinois, and was named to the six-player all-tournament team.
Liz Fazio
Cleveland State
So., Outside Hitter, Akron, Ohio
Fazio led the Vikings in kills per game (3.91) in helping them to a 2-2 week. Fazio started the week with 16 kills and five digs in a five-set loss to Kent State.
She then totaled 27 kills, nine digs and four aces as CSU swept Austin Peay and Georgetown to open play at the Kentucky Invitational over the weekend. For her efforts, she was named to the all-tournament team. Fazio finished the week with 43 kills, 14 digs and five aces.
Betty Slinger
Green Bay
Sr., Setter, Fairbault, Minn.
Slinger was named to the Drake Hampton Inn Invitational All-Tournament team as she hit .439 with 22 kills and 41 assists as she guided the Phoenix to a 1-2 record this past week.
Lana Lobdell
UIC
So., Middle Hitter, Lena, Ill.
Lobdell help guide the Flames to a 2-2 mark this past weekend at the College of Charleston Invitational. During the four matches, Lobdell hit .400 with 37 kills and three assists. Defensively, the sophomore had nine total blacks and 12 digs.
Sarah Singer
Loyola
Jr., Outside Hitter, Waukesha, Wis.
Singer averaged 4.20 kills per game and 3.47 digs in four matches this past week. In addition, she recorded three double-doubles. Singer started the week off by nailing a career-best 24 kills to go with 13 digs, four aces and three blocks in a five-game loss to Western Michigan (Aug. 28).
During the weekend, Singer posted 14 kills and 12 digs in the win over Iona before capping tournament play with 18 kills and a career-high 20 digs as the Ramblers dropped a four-game decision to host Eastern Illinois.
Singer, who was named to the EIU/Pepsi Invitational All-Tournament Team, has led Loyola in kills in five of six matches this season and leads the team in kills (86, 3.86 kpg) in her first season in a Rambler uniform.
Becky Peters
Milwaukee
Jr., Libero, Germantown, Wis.
Peters posted three more strong efforts for the Panthers in the back row as UWM won all three of its matches at the Western New York Invitational. Peters' best individual effort of the weekend came Saturday against Binghamton, when she tallied 22 digs in a three-game victory. She also had 10 digs against St. Francis Friday, helping the Panthers limit the Terriers to just six points in the first game and 32 points in the match. Peters also had 16 digs against Fordham Saturday morning. For the week, Peters averaged 4.80 digs per game and has now reached double figures in digs in 62 of her 65 career matches.
Allison Sears
Valparaiso
Jr., Middle Blocker, Elkhart, Ind.
Sears helped the Crusaders to a perfect 3-0 weekend at the Western New York Invitational in Buffalo, N.Y. During the three matches,
Sears collected 38 kills 73 total assists and 15 total blocks. Sears saved her best performance for last as she hit .450 with 12 kills and eight blocks against St. Francis (N.Y.).
Tara Geegan
Wright State
Sr., Middle Blocker, Algonquin, Ill.
Geegan hit .333 with 50 kills and 99 total assists as she was named to the Sheraton Hilton Invitational All-Tournament Team. Defensively, the senior collected 13 digs and 16 total blocks. In WSU's first win of the season over Indiana State (3-1), Geegan hit .500 with three block assists.
Ruth Boscaljon
Youngstown State
So., Middle Hitter, Elgin, Ill.
Boscaljon helped the Penguins to a 1-2 record last week averaging 3.09 kills and 1.09 blocks per game with a .356 hitting percentage. Boscaljon hit .316 with three blocks in a 3-1 win over UNC-Greensboro and .459 with a 20 kills and six blocks against Robert Morris.
News From Around the League
Butler
The Bulldogs will wrap up their regular season tournament play this weekend at the West Virginia Volleyball Classic, where they will take on East Tennessee on Sept. 7 and both host West Virginia and Indiana State on Sept. 8.
Sophomore Porshia Allen has been the Bulldogs' most consistent offensive player this season, leading the team with a .235 attack percentage and 4.32 kills per game.
Junior Nina Inic has led the Bulldogs in digs in all seven matches this season. She paces the squad with 5.48 digs per game.
Cleveland State
Sophomore Liz Fazio earned a spot on the Kentucky Invitational All-Tournament team after posting 27 kills, nine digs and four aces in two CSU wins. It is the fourth time Fazio has been selected to an all-tournament team in her career as a Viking.
Sophomore Maggie Bonomini recorded a career-high 27 digs in Tuesday's 3-2 loss to Kent State. It shattered her previous high of 13 set in last year's Horizon League semifinal loss to UIC.
Junior Jenni Ramminger moved into eighth place on the all-time blocks list at CSU with 254. In addition, she added a career-high 19 kills in Tuesday's 3-2 loss to Kent State.
The Vikings finished runner-up at the Kentucky Invitational with a 2-1 record. Kentucky, which defeated CSU on Saturday night, won the tournament with a perfect 3-0 mark.
Green Bay
Green Bay is idle this week and will return to action Sept. 14 at the Minnesota Gopher Invitational. The team will take on the host Gophers as well as Creighton and Charlotte in the four-team event.
After missing the first weekend of action, junior Abby Bergsma performed well in her season debut against Drake this past Friday. No Green Bay player reached double figures in kills, but Bergsma led the Phoenix with nine kills with only one error for a .348 attacking percentage. For the weekend, Bergsma fired a .305 attacking percentage and averaged 2.4 kills per game.
UIC
Despite a rough start in the 2007 College of Charleston Invitational, UIC bounced back on day two of the tournament. After falling to Charlotte and host College of Charleston, the Flames concluded the event as they handed Towson and Winthrop losses to record a 2-2 mark on the weekend.
Sophomore Katerina Hanackova led UIC with 53 kills and a .287 attack percentage. Freshman Taylor Szatkowski picked up a team-high 39 digs, while sophomore Lana Lobdell paced the team with six service aces, nine blocks and a .400 attack percentage.
UIC hosts its home opener against Eastern Illinois on Sept. 4 at 7:00 p.m. The Flames then host their annual UIC Invitational on Sept. 7-8, featuring Elon, McNeeses State and North Dakota State.
Loyola
Freshman Mallory Curran put together another productive week, hammering down 45 kills (2.81 kpg) while adding a team-best 18 blocks (1.12 bpg). She ranks second on the team in kills, while leading the team in blocks after two weeks of competition.
This weekend presents an interesting dilemma for Loyola head coach Marcie Bomhack. The Ramblers head to Coral Gables, Fla. for the Hurricane Invitational where she will coach against her sister, Bridget, who is a junior S/RS for the Hurricanes and former high school teammate of LU attacker Sarah Singer.
Milwaukee
Leanne Felsing missed a match for the first time in her career on Friday, which snapped a streak of 89-consecutive matches played. She sat out to rest an ailing shoulder before returning to action on Saturday. Becky Peters now has the longest active matches-played streak for the Panthers, with the junior having played in 63 consecutive outings. On Saturday, Felsing showed the rest paid off. She tallied a triple-double against Binghamton. It was her third triple-double of the season and the 10th of her career. She also surpassed 1,000 career digs over the weekend.
The six points St. Francis scored in the first game are the fewest by a UWM opponent in a single game since the volleyball scoring format changed in 2001. The previous record was 10, set against Syracuse in 2002. The six points St. Francis scored in the first game are the fewest by a UWM opponent in a single game since the volleyball scoring format changed in 2001. The previous record was 10, set against Syracuse in 2002 and tied last season against Ball State.
UWM is getting contributions from a wide variety of players in the early season. The Panthers had five players reach double figures in kills against Fordham and six different players have had at least one double-figure kill outing already this season. Freshman Natalie Schmitting was another big offensive spark over the weekend, collecting 28 kills in the three outings.
Valparaiso
Valpo recorded 33 service aces over three matches last weekend, including 16 against St. Francis, tying a program record for aces in a three-game match (Chicago State, 11/5/91).
Freshman Andrea Balsis, making her first collegiate start, tallied seven aces versus St. Francis, second-most in a three-game match by an individual in Valpo history and tied for third-most in any length match. She also registered 11 kills on .450 hitting against the Terriers.
Sophomore Val Bollenbacher had a career performance in the win over Binghamton, setting career-highs with 26 kills and 49 attacks and matching a career-best with 18 digs
Wright State
After picking up its first win of the season Tuesday at Indiana State, the Raiders dropped all three matches at the Sheraton Hilton Invitational, falling in five games to Akron, four games to Syracuse and four games to undefeated and eventual tournament champion Mississippi. The six teams that Wright State has lost to this season now have a combined record of 31-10, with one being undefeated (Mississippi 7-0) and three being 6-1 (Akron, Kentucky, Western Michigan).
Senior middle blocker Tara Geegan was named to the Sheraton Hilton All-Tournament Team as she recorded 35 kills over three matches with 13 blocks, including 14 kills against Akron and five blocks versus Mississippi. It is Geegan's fourth all-tournament selection since the start of the 2006 season.
Youngstown State
With the 3-1 win over UNC-Greensboro on Friday, YSU set the school mark for most consecutive wins to start a season with five.
In 39 career matches played, sophomore Ruth Boscaljon has posted double figures in kills 21 times and has tallied at least 20 kills five times after posting 20 against Robert Morris.
Junior setter Karla Everhart moved into sixth place on the all-time YSU assist list with 1,415. She dished out 105 last weekend. She needs 585 more assists to become the fifth player to collect 2,000 in a career and 762 more to move into fifth place on the all-time list.
