A weekend of volleyball in SIU arena ended Saturday night with the Salukis (4-2) winning in a sweep (25-10, 25-17, 25-21) of the UT-Martin Skyhawks (2-7).

SIU started the day with a loss (20-25, 25-20, 16-25, 23-25) to No. 20 Western Kentucky (5-1). 

“Tournaments are hard, especially playing twice in one day” coach Justin Ingram said. “You don’t know how fatigued you can get until you get out there — sometimes it’s physical but most of the time it’s mental.”

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This was evident in Western Kentucky’s first loss of the season. They were swept at the hands of Dayton — a team SIU beat Friday night.

In the Salukis’ match against the Hilltoppers of Western Kentucky, Senior Taylor Pippen had 15 kills and five attack errors on 37 attempts — putting her attack efficiency at 27 percent.

“[WKU] blocking system was different,” Pippen said. “Most of the time when I went up I had two blockers on me.”

Pippen settled down in the match against UT-Martin. She finished with seven kills on nine attempts and no errors.

Junior libero Mariana Pilon averaged 11 digs per match this weekend.

“We wanted to start off really strong in that last match,” Pilon said. “When you have that attitude you bring the energy — I think we did a good job, but we could have done better.”

The Salukis next match is against Arkansas State in the University of Tulsa Invitational on Friday.

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Evan Jones can be reached at [email protected] or on twitter @EvanJones_DE