Aug. 24, 2007
Final Stats
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Notre Dame, Ind. – Three Golden Gophers posted double-digit kills as No. 9 Minnesota dealt the University of Notre Dame volleyball team a 3-0 loss in a match that was both team’s season opener Friday at the Joyce Center.
Senior Ashley Tarutis (Long Beach Calif./Los Alamitos) led Notre Dame with 16 assists while sophomore Jamel Nicholas (Gibsonia, Pa./Pine-Richland) had 13 of her own. Senior Adrianna Stasiuk (Park Ridge, Ill./Maine South) had 10 digs to go along with her nine kills. Eleven of ND’s 59 kills came from sophomore Megan Fesl (Arlington Heights, Ill./John Hersey).
Minnesota’s Brook Dieter had 18 kills on 36 tries (.306), Kyla Roehrig had 17 more in 31 attempts (.355), while Jessy Jones laid down 13 kills with two errors in 18 swings for a .611 clip. Setter Rachel Hartmann dished out 50 of 53 Golden Gopher (1-0) assists.
Game one went Minnesota’s way, 30-16, after they outscored the Irish (0-1) 13-5 to close out the frame. ND was plagued by five errors over that stretch as the Golden Gophers swung for a .389 average in the game and would go on to finish with a .282 mark for the match. Making her first collegiate start was freshman Kellie Sciacca (Monument, Colo./Lewis-Palmer), who slammed down a pair of kills in the game.
ND turned a four-point deficit into a four-point lead to go ahead 15-11 in the second game. A pair of kills by Roehrig brought Minnesota within one point, 15-14, before Stasiuk notched two of her own to keep the Irish on top. Trailing 20-19, Minnesota managed to tie the game up three times before pulling out the 30-28 win. Sophomore Justine Stremick (Langdon, N.D./Langdon Area) paced Notre Dame with four kills in the frame while Fesl and Sciacca each chipped in three.
Dieter’s seven kills in game three helped the Golden Gophers keep a three- to four-point cushion ahead of Notre Dame for most of the stanza. But after trailing by as many as seven (25-18), the Irish mounted a late surge to knot things up at 27-27 courtesy of a pair of kills by Stasiuk and one each from Fesl and sophomore Serinity Phillips (Valley Center, Calif./Valley Center). In fact, it was Fesl who chased down a wild ball deep in Notre Dame’s backcourt and sent it over for Minnesota to attack into the net to force the 27-27 tie. A Jones kill put Minnesota back on top by one before Fesl floated a point over the Golden Gopher blockers to make the score 28-28. Dieter registered the final two points to wrap up the 3-0 sweep.
The loss was a first for the Irish in a home opener under head coach Debbie Brown, and the first to start a season since a 3-1 defeat to Montana in 1990.
No. 7 Florida will visit Notre Dame on Sunday (Aug. 26) for a 7 p.m. match to be played in the Joyce Center Fieldhouse. The contest will be televised live on Fox Sports (South)/Sun Sports.
— ND —