Oct. 9, 2011
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – A second straight BIG EAST Conference volleyball road win came in the form of a 3-0 (25-18, 25-19, 25-12) victory for Notre Dame Sunday afternoon at the West Virginia Coliseum. Paving the way for the Irish over host West Virginia was senior Kristen Dealy and her 16 kills. In fact, Dealy hit an eye-popping .533 on the day without an error in 30 attempts.
Dealy also added six digs and a pair of blocks for Notre Dame (10-6 overall, 3-3 BIG EAST), which snapped a three-match skid this weekend with back-to-back road wins at Pittsburgh and West Virginia.
Notre Dame hit .267 as a team including a .400 clip in the first set. West Virginia (4-13, 2-4) hit .088 and ended the contest with a .000 average in the last frame. Serinna Russo had 10 kills for the Mountaineers.
Freshmen Toni Alugbue and Jeni Houser each posted nine Irish kills. Eight Notre Dame players knocked down multiple kills in the contest with 25 assists coming from sophomore Sammie Brown.
Sophomore Andrea McHugh had 16 digs for the Irish and senior Frenchy Silva was close behind with 15.
Both squads had six team blocks as junior Hilary Eppink, sophomore Andie Olsen, Dealy and Houser each had two for the Irish.
Dealy had six kills and a block in the first set. The Irish totaled 17 kills with just three errors on 35 attempts as freshman Kathleen Severyn put the finishing touches on the Mountaineers with an ace on set point.
Alugbue had two straight kills to start the second and Houser added two more on the next pair of rallies.
Notre Dame doubled-up West Virginia at 10-5 with the Mountaineers taking five of the next seven points to make it close. A Houser error brought the home team within one at 13-12, but the Mountaineers then committed three errors of their own as Notre Dame used a 5-0 run to shut the gate.
Coming out of the break, West Virginia had the upper hand during a 3-0 run to begin the third set. Dealy notched a solo block and slammed four kills during an 11-0 Irish streak to make it 11-3. Dealy proceeded to bounce two more kills as part of an 18-1 jaunt to answer the Mountaineers’ opening spurt.
Notre Dame continues BIG EAST play at 7:00 p.m. (CT) on Friday (Oct. 14) at DePaul.
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