Volleyball Scoreboard (Oct. 11)
Cleveland State 3, Green Bay 0
UIC 3, Oakland 0
Valparaiso 3, Wright State 0
Youngstown State 3, Milwaukee 0
Cleveland State 3, Green Bay 0
The Cleveland State women's volleyball team got back on the winning track Saturday afternoon, picking up a 3-0 victory over Green Bay. With the win, the Vikings now stand at 10-9 overall and 3-3 in Horizon League play.
Set scores against Green Bay were 25-18, 25-15, 32-30.
Maggie Hannon led the Viking offense with 13 kills and a .524 hitting percentage (13-2-21), while Grace Kauth and Gina Kilner each added eight kills. Christina Toth and Ally Beck both posted seven kills against Green Bay, while Aaliyah Slappy recorded six. Kilner served as CSU's lone setter during the match, recording a career-high 38 assists.
CSU had three players record double-digit digs during the match, led by Kauth and Nikki Holmes who each posted 12. Shannon Grega, who served as CSU's libero, posted 11 digs. Slappy led CSU's blocking efforts, posting a career-high eight blocks, while Toth added a career-high tying seven blocks.
During the opening frame the Vikings controlled play from the beginning, jumping out to a 12-4 lead forcing Green Bay to take two timeouts early on. Cleveland State then held a sizeable advantage for the remainder of the frame, closing the set on an Aaliyah Slappy kill.
The Vikings carried this momentum into the second set, picking up a 25-15 victory over the Phoenix. The two teams traded points during the beginning of the frame, but CSU was able to distance itself at the 17-8 mark after going on a four-point run which included a pair of kills from Toth and another kill from Beck. The Vikings then held at least a six-point lead for the remainder of the frame, and closed the set with a Kauth kill.
The two teams then battled during the third set, before CSU was finally able to close the match with a 32-30 set victory. After the two teams traded points during the beginning of the frame, CSU was able to gain an advantage at the 17-14 mark after a Hannon kill, and held the lead over the next few plays. Green Bay stayed in the set though, knotting it up at 22-22. Both teams then traded points once again over the end of the set, before Cleveland State was finally able to post back-to-back points on kills from Kauth and Toth.
As a team, the Vikings posted a .258 hitting percentage and tallied 10 total team blocks – the sixth match this season with double-digit team blocks.
UIC 3, Oakland 0
The UIC volleyball team (9-12, 3-3 HL) handed first-place Oakland (12-8, 4-1 HL) its first Horizon League loss of the season with a 3-0 sweep (25-21, 25-22, 25-17) Saturday afternoon. The Flames recorded their fourth sweep of the season and second in a row after Friday night's 3-0 win over Wright State.
UIC put down 45 kills on a .340 attack percentage and collected nine blocks against the Golden Grizzlies. The Flames hit at a .324 clip over the weekend and limited their opponents to a .173 attack percentage. UIC had 86 kills, 15 blocks and six aces in the pair of victories.
Junior Stephenee Yancy, who ranks fifth in the nation with 338 kills, extended her double-digit kill streak to 21 matches with a match-high 14 kills on 24 attempts for a .458 attack percentage. She had six kills on eight attempts in the first set and five on eight swings in the third set. Yancy also collected a match-high five blocks and owns 38 total blocks over her last seven contests.
Sophomore Kara Johnson had 13 kills on 28 attempts for her 17th double-digit performance. She put down four kills on nine attempts in the first set and six on 14 swings in the third set. Johnson also added eight digs on defense.
Redshirt freshman Nicole Johnson, who leads the nation with 936 assists, had 36 assists and three blocks. She had five blocks in six sets over the weekend.
Senior Molly McCoy had eight kills and a match-high 12 digs for the third double-digit dig effort of her career. McCoy and senior Sara Jo Sternard collected two blocks while sophomore Casey Harris had three blocks. Harris and Sternard had four kills apiece while Harris hit at a .571 clip.
Senior Maggie Strus compiled nine digs to increase her program-record career total to 1,554. Freshman Allie O'Reilly recorded two service aces and owns five aces over her last five matches.
UIC led 14-9 in the first set before Oakland came back to narrow the Flames' lead to 20-19. UIC responded with two Yancy kills, a kill by Kara Johnson and a dual block from Sternard and Nicole Johnson to go up 1-0.
Oakland's biggest lead of the match was at 11-5 in the second set before a 6-0 run with Kara Johnson serving allowed UIC to tie the score. The set was tied 15-15 but kills by Yancy, Kara Johnson and a Golden Grizzlies' attack error allowed the Flames to go up 18-15. UIC never relinquished its lead and Kara Johnson sealed the win with her third kill of the set.
UIC ran out to a 6-1 lead in the third set and Oakland could not rally back to tie the score. The Golden Grizzlies trimmed the Flames' lead to 14-13 before a 7-0 run with Nicole Johnson serving allowed UIC to pull away for good.
Valparaiso 3, Wright State 0
The Valparaiso volleyball team rebounded from Friday night’s loss in an emphatic way less than 24 hours, heading to Dayton for a 3-0 (25-16, 25-17, 25-21) sweep of Wright State on Saturday afternoon.
“It was good to be able to play again right away after last night,” said Crusader head coach Carin Avery. “We came out and played steady, good volleyball today. I’m very proud of Morgan Beil’s accomplishment this weekend, reaching 1,000 career kills – our hope this season is that she keeps climbing the charts, because if she continues to move up, we will win a lot more matches.”
Freshman Allison Ketcham (Mishawaka, Ind./Marian) led the way on both sides of the ball for the Crusaders. Offensively, Ketcham registered kills on nearly half her swings, posting 16 kills on 33 attacks with just two errors – good for a .424 hitting percentage. In the back row, the freshman recorded a team-best 14 digs.
Ketcham’s effort in the back row led a solid defensive performance by the Crusaders, as Wright State hit just .112 with 29 kills for the match. Sophomore Morganne Longoria (Burlington, Wis./Burlington) added 12 digs while fellow sophomore Rachel Bruinsma (New Era, Mich./Western Michigan Christian) chipped in 10 digs as well as the Crusaders finished the match with 55 digs.
Valpo’s offense was the showcase in each of the first two sets, with hitting percentages above .350 in both the first and second frame. The Crusaders totaled 16 kills in the opening set, four of which came during a key 7-1 run which pushed a 13-10 advantage to 20-11. Then, in the second frame, Valpo tallied 15 kills against just two attack errors, including three kills from Ketcham in an early 6-0 spurt which gave the Crusaders the lead for good as they took a 2-0 lead into the in-game break.
The third set proved to be the Crusaders’ biggest battle on Saturday, as Wright State led most of the opening half. Valpo claimed the lead and pushed it up to 18-14 on back-to-back kills from sophomore Jamie Lacheta (Warsaw, Ind./Warsaw), but the Raiders answered with four straight points to tie the set at 18-all. After the teams traded sideouts, the Crusaders strung together four straight points, including a kill and a block by junior Nicole Lambert (St. Charles, Ill./East [Radford]) to go up 23-19. WSU scored the next two points to close within two, but terminations by Lacheta and Ketcham closed out the Valpo sweep.
The Crusaders closed the match with 45 kills on .287 hitting, as junior Kelsey Berrington (Britton, Mich./Tecumseh) handed out 37 assists in the win. It was a total team effort, as Ketcham was the only Crusader with more than five kills and seven Crusaders in all had at least three kills for the match.
Marisa Aiello led Wright State (3-16, 0-5 Horizon) with ten kills on .320 hitting. Jessie Thornton tallied a match-best 16 digs.
Youngstown State 3, Milwaukee 0
The Youngstown State volleyball team hit .350 as a team while posting 10 blocks in a sweep of preseason Horizon League favorite Milwaukee on Saturday afternoon at Beeghly Center. The set scores were 25-19, 26-24, 29-27.
The .350 attack percentage was Youngstown State's best ever in a Horizon League match, and the 10 team blocks and 18 digs by libero Nikki Thompson keyed the defense. Sam Brown finished with 12 kills, and Lauren Thompson posted 11 kills and a .556 attack percentage. Setter Val Jeffery had 37 assists, five kills, five digs and four blocks.
Combined with a five-set win over Green Bay on Friday, Youngstown State is now 13-8 overall and 4-2 in Horizon League play, one win behind first-place Milwaukee and Oakland in the conference standings. The Panthers are now 9-8 overall and 4-1 in conference matches.
"I thought Val did a great job spreading the ball around, and our hitters did a great job finding open spots," YSU head coach Mark Hardaway said. "Because conference teams scout you so heavily, we've tried to change things up a little and do things out of character. We hit some shots today we don't normally hit, and that was a big plus. We talked about what we thought was open, and we were able to execute and get the ball there."
"Lauren and Sam both had really good days, and Nikki was huge defensively with 18 digs. All weekend I thought we did a good job of picking each other up when someone got cold, and that's very rewarding as a coach."
Youngstown State hit .484 behind seven kills in nine attempts from Brown and pulled away in the second half of the first set. Jeffery and Lauren Blanco, who filled in for an injured Shannon Watson in the first set, combined for a block to cap a three-point run that put YSU ahead 16-14, and the Penguins led the rest of the set. Another three-point run put YSU ahead 20-16, and Milwaukee got no closer than three.
"I think in the first set when Shannon went down and the team didn't fall apart was a huge factor in today's win," Hardaway said. "We didn't let that phase us."
Luck was on Youngstown State's side in the second set, and the Penguins fought off a big Milwaukee charge. Jeffery stuck her foot out to dig an attack that ended up as a Penguins kill, and Nikki Thompson had a dig that sailed over for another kill during a 7-2 run that put YSU ahead 17-10. Milwaukee scored five straight points to get back in the set, and the Panthers eventually caught the Penguins at 24-24. Lauren Thompson's kill put YSU up 25-24, and Nikki Thompson had another over pass fall for a kill on set point.
Milwaukee led for most of the third set, and its fourth four-point advantage came at 17-13 on one of Julie Kolinske's match-high 18 kills. A Kaisa Mattson kill gave the Panthers a 24-21 lead and three set points, but YSU would not be denied. Kills by Lauren Thompson, Brown and Jeffery tied the set, and YSU fended of two more set points before winning 29-27. A kill by Lexi Egler gave the Penguins their second match point, and Lauren Thompson and Watson blocked Myanna Ruiz to complete the win.
