Volleyball drops two in ‘little apple’

Volleyball drops two in ‘little apple

By Tyler Dixon

 

The Salukis started off hot Friday morning with a sweep at the K-State Invitational in Manhattan, Kan., but faltered as the competition continued.

After dropping a thrilling five-set match to Middle Tennessee State Tuesday, the team regrouped as it took down Siena Friday in match one, before falling to Big 12-power Kansas State in its second match and rival Southeast Missouri State Saturday in the final match of the tournament.

Advertisement

SIU didn’t have its best game offensively in the first game, with a .156 hitting percentage; however, the Salukis’ 10 team blocks helped propel them to a three-set sweep of Siena: 25-17, 25-18, 25-22.

The Salukis were led in their first match by senior Elly Braaten who racked up eight kills, along with freshman Meg Viggars who finished with 18 assists.

This was the first win for the Salukis since facing University of Connecticut Aug. 30. Braaten said she liked picking up another win.

“It felt good,” Braaten said. “That was our first sweep of the season. Our previous win against UConn went five, so it was nice to get a three-set win.”

Kansas State entered the second match against SIU with a 4-0 record on the season. Senior Jessica Whitehead had a match-high 14 kills in the team’s 3-0 loss, while junior Alex Rivera led both teams with seven digs.

Senior Emily Less said she knew it would be a difficult match against Kansas State, and even in losing, they learned a lot.

“We knew going into it that they were a really good and consistent team,” Less said.

Advertisement*

Despite a bumpy start losing 25-13 in the first set, the team had 12 kills and only four errors. It didn’t help that Kansas State finished the first set with 18 kills and only one error.

“I know our hitters had really high hitting efficiency and even though we lost, we still improved on a lot of things,” Braaten said.

The Wildcats continued the match with a very good kill to error ratio as they finished the match with 44 kills and only six errors.

Braaten said it was a great experience playing at Ahearn Field House, the home of K-State volleyball, which seats 5,000.

“They had about 3,000 fans in there,” Braaten said. “It was a really cool environment.”

In the final match of the tournament, the Salukis played rival Southeast Missouri State. Braaten said it felt different playing SEMO because of the history with their head coach, Julie Yankus.

Yankus was SIU’s assistant head coach from 2006 to 2010.

“It was interesting playing SEMO, especially for me and the other two seniors.” Braaten said. “Their head coach is the person who recruited us to come to SIU; we have a history with this team.”

SIU had a two-to-one lead after taking the first and third sets but couldn’t close out the match and fell in five sets for the second time this week. SEMO took the fifth set 15-10.

Four Salukis finished the match with double-digit kills and the team totaled 69 kills to the Redhawks’ 54. Whitehead led all players with 28, while sophomore Taylor Pippen had 13, Less had 12 and Braaten tallied 11.

SIU will face St. Louis Tuesday in its second home match of the season. SLU enters the game with a 3-3 record and comes off two wins from Friday and Saturday’s Comfort Inn and Suites Invitational in Morehead, Ky.

Braaten said the team has experience with SLU and hopes they can come away with the win.

“We’ve played St. Louis before and we’ve done well against them,” she said. “Hopefully it’ll go our way.”

Advertisement