Creighton University
Southern Illinois
Volleyball Overcomes Slow Start To Down SIU In Four
11/2/2007 10:15:00 PM | Volleyball
OMAHA, Neb. -- The Creighton Volleyball team improved to 17-8 on the season with a 3-1 victory over Southern Illinois. Scores of the match were 17-30, 30-19, 30-16, 30-22.
The Bluejays are now 11-3 in the Missouri Valley Conference and in third place, one game behind Missouri State and two games behind league-leading Wichita State. CU will face both teams on the road next weekend after a 1 pm home tilt against Evansville on Sunday.
Kelly Goc led Creighton with 20 kills and tied a career-high with eight blocks. Korie Lebeda also turned in a career-high eight blocks to go with her 47 assists, eight digs and five kills. Creighton hit .198 and finished with 59 kills, five aces, 78 digs and a season-high 18 blocks.
SIU was paced by 13 kills and 13 digs from Jennifer Berwanger. Chandra Roberson had 10 kills. SIU finished with 47 kills, two aces, 65 digs and nine blocks while hitting .084.
The Jays came out ice-cold in the opening game mixing 13 hitting errors, one setting error, two serving errors, one ball handling error and a reception error as SIU hammered the Jays by a 30-17 count. Roberson had four kills in six swings to lead SIU in the first game.
Creighton turned the tables on the Salukis in the second game. After CU raced to a 6-1 lead, Southern Illinois fought back to tie the score at 11-all. However, CU used a 6-1 run with strong serving from Carolyn Decker and Lauren Bloemke to take a 17-12 lead. The Jays would clinch the 30-19 win on a kill from Goc, her sixth of the set. Creighton had eight blocks in the second game, including three from both Goc and Lebeda.
The Jays turned in eight more blocks in the third game while dominating a 30-16 set. Abby Baumann had four blocks in the third game, including three solo stuffs, as SIU hit -.050 in 40 swings. An extended serving run by Allie Oelke early in game two keyed the Jays to a 14-1 lead. The advantage reached as large as 25-8 before a late Saluki run pushed the final score to 30-16.
The fourth game was easily the closest of the night, with 12 ties and three lead changes. With the score knotted as 16-all, SIU used a three-point run to take a 19-16 run. Just as quickly, Creighton answered with another burst while Oelke was serving. An 8-0 run gave the Jays a 25-20 lead, and seven points later the Jays claimed a 30-22 win on a kill by Decker. SIU had no answer for Goc in the fourth game, as the senior from Ralston had eight kills in 16 swings. Defensively, Bianca Rivera had 13 of Creighton's 35 digs in the fourth game.
Creighton returns to action on Sunday at 1 pm with a home match against Evansvile (12-12, 5-8 MVC).
NOTES: Korie Lebeda became the first player in school history with more than 1,000 assists in each of her first three years. She now has 1,044 assists in this, her junior campaign ...Bianca Rivera had 25 digs to become just the second player in CU history (Janeen Piller) with more than 500 digs in a season ...Kelly Goc's 20 kills tied a season-high, done twice previously against Illinois State ...Abby Baumann's four blocks were a season-high, as were her three solo blocks. She had entered the night with only two solo blocks all season ...Tonight was just the second time in Creighton's 25 matches that the team winning game one did not win the match. CU rallied from a 0-2 deficit at Northern Iowa on Sept. 21.
