Oct. 8, 2005
QUEENS, N.Y. – The 10th-ranked University of Notre Dame women’s volleyball team (13-1, 4-0 BIG EAST) won a tight four-game affair over St. John’s (15-6, 1-3) Saturday afternoon in Carnesecca Arena by scores of 28-30, 30-26, 30-28, 30-27. The Irish have now won six consecutive matches and are one of two teams (along with #6 Louisville) unbeaten in BIG EAST Conference action.
The match was close throughout, featuring 27 ties and 13 total lead changes. It was an offensive-dominated affair, as both teams hit .260+ for the match and only once did either squad hit below .240 in a game. Oddly, the first three games were won by the team with the lower attack percentage. For the match, St. John’s held a slight advantage in virtually every statistical category. But Notre Dame was able to use strong play at the ends of games to earn the victory.
Sophomore setter Ashley Tarutis (Long Beach, Calif./Los Alamitos H.S.) had 55 assists – plus three kills on seven attack attempts (.429) – in leading the Irish offense to a .260 hitting mark. Leading the way was senior All-American MB Lauren Brewster (Brentwood, Tenn./Brentwood H.S.), who had 17 kills on 36 attempts for a .389 attack percentage. It was the most kills for her in nearly a month, since she posted 20 in the upset of #6 Florida on Sept. 11. Sophomore OH Adrianna Stasiuk (Park Ridge, Ill./Maine South H.S.) matched her career high – done previously on Sept. 7, 2004, against Valparaiso – with 16 kills. Senior OH Lauren Kelbley (Bascom, Ohio/Hopewell-Loudon H.S.) ended with 13 kills, while her classmate, MB Carolyn Cooper (Houston, Texas/Lutheran South Academy), finished with 11 kills on .400 hitting. Kelbley has been in double figures in kills in all but one match this season – including each of the last nine – and 75 in her career. That places her third on the all-time Notre Dame list, behind only Angie Harris (88, played from 1994-97) and Christy Peters (80, 1991-94). Cooper’s total matched her season best.
The only areas where the Irish did dominate were serving and receiving. Notre Dame finished with eight service aces and just seven errors, marking the sixth time this season the Irish have had more aces than errors. Senior co-captain L/OH Meg Henican (New Orleans, La./Isidore Newman H.S.) led the Irish with a season-high three aces (while making two errors). Tarutis added a pair of aces, while Kelbley, Cooper, and Brewster all had one. For the season, Notre Dame has 90 aces (1.76 per game) and 109 service errors, an ace-to-error ratio of 0.826, which would be the second-best in program history.
Once again, the Irish serve-receive was outstanding, as Henican and Stasiuk led the effort that saw ND allow just one St. John’s ace – which came on a ball that hit the top of the net and rolled over onto the Irish side of the court late in the first game – while the Red Storm committed a dozen service errors. Henican received 60 of the 98 SJU serves (61%) without making an error, extending her current streak of consecutive serves taken without committing a reception error to 208. That dates back over six matches to the third game on Sept. 25 against Seton Hall. Stasiuk took 26 serves perfectly, not committing a reception error for the second match in a row. The Irish have now surrendered just three aces over the last four matches, an average of 0.21 per game. For the season, ND has allowed just 39 aces in 51 games, an average of 0.76 per game. The Irish record for aces allowed per game is 0.94, done in 2003 in large part due to the efforts of Henican and Jessica Kinder (2000-03).
The other story of the match was that Notre Dame – as it has done all season – won big points at the end of games to prevail. Leading just 26-25 in game two, the Irish won four of the final five points, including a kill from Brewster on game point. In the third game, ND was up 28-27, but got a block from Brewster to reach game point and then a kill by Cooper that finished off the game. The final game saw the Irish lead 25-24 before winning four of the next five points – including two on kills by Stasiuk, as well as a Kelbley kill – and eventually finishing the game with another Stasiuk kill. ND also made a late push that fell just short in game one. The Irish were down 29-23, but saved five consecutive points – three on kills by Kelbley and another on a block by Kelbley and Cooper – before SJU converted on game point #6.
Notre Dame – which came into the week as the only team in the nation among the top 10 in Division I in both digs and blocks – had one of its least-impressive defensive matches of the season. St. John’s – which came into the week among the top two in the BIG EAST in hitting percentage, kills, and assists – finished with a .266 hitting mark, the highest by any Irish opponent in 2005, as well as advantages in both digs (+11) and blocks (+1). Notre Dame had just a season-low eight blocks, but was able to win when being outblocked for the first time in nearly three years, since beating Connecticut in the BIG EAST semifinals on Nov. 23, 2002, despite being outblocked 10-9.
The Red Storm got an outstanding performance from freshman OH/MB Ping Hui Huang, who had a match-high 25 kills on .455 hitting. St. John’s also got 16 kills from junior OH Patti Hardiman and 14 from senior MB Shameka Mitchell. Defensively, SJU freshman libero Kathleen Yee posted 34 digs, and Hardiman had 21. Sophomore RS/OH Latoya Blunt took part in six of the nine Red Storm blocks.
Henican led the Irish defensively, posting 22 digs, while Tarutis had 11 for her 10th double-double of the season. Stasiuk added 10 digs, and Brewster had a season-high seven. Junior DS Danielle Herndon (Plant City, Fla./Durant H.S.) also had seven digs. Cooper and Kelbley both were in on a team-high three blocks.
Notre Dame has won all 11 matches all-time contests with St. John’s and now stands 5-0 this season in matches on the opponent’s home court.
The Irish will return to action on Sunday, playing at Connecticut at 2 p.m. (EDT).
#10 Notre Dame (13-1, 4-0) 28-30-30-30St. John's (15-6, 1-3) 30-26-28-27
Kills: ND 66 (Brewster 17), SJU 77 (Huang 25)Attack Percentage: ND .260 (Cooper .400), SJU .266 (Huang .455)Assists: ND 63 (Tarutis 55), SJU 73 (Brooks 36)Service Aces-Errors: ND 8-7 (Henican 3), SJU 1-12 (Wood 1)Digs: ND 68 (Henican 22), SJU 79 (Yee 34)Blocks: ND 8 (Cooper & Kelbley 3), SJU 9 (Blunt 6)Points: ND 82 (Brewster 19.5), SJU 87 (Huang 26)Attendance: 186