Nov. 17, 2007
Final Stats
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MILWAUKEE, Wis. – In Saturday’s semifinal match of the BIG EAST Conference Tournament against No. 22 Louisville, the University of Notre Dame volleyball team was handed a 3-0 (30-25, 30-20, 30-27) loss at the Al McGuire Center.
With the win, the top-seeded Cardinals (22-5) advanced to the finals of the league tournament. They will face the victor of the second semifinal match between St. John’s and South Florida.
Notre Dame (14-13), the tournament’s fourth-seeded squad, will now trek to Tennessee for a Nov. 23 match against the Lady Vols in Knoxville.
The Irish could only muster 4.0 blocks compared to Louisville’s total of 13.0. The Cardinals also out hit the Irish, .363 to .244.
Freshman Kellie Sciacca (Monument, Colo./Lewis Palmer) checked in with a career-best .632 clip with 14 kills on 19 swings for Notre Dame. Double-digit kills also came from sophomore Megan Fesl (Arlington Heights, Ill./John Hersey), who had 11, and senior Adrianna Stasiuk (Park Ridge, Ill./Maine South), who had 15.
Trailing by three (3-6) early in game one, Notre Dame’s Stasiuk struck a kill off the Louisville block which fell out of bounds to bring her team within a pair (4-6). She then managed to drop an ace which made the score 6-7 in favor of UofL. Junior Justine Stremick’s (Langdon, N.D./Langdon Area) solo block on Lecia Brown’s attack made it a one-score affair (11-12) and a converted kill by Stasiuk tied it at 12-12. Stremick then slammed down the Cardinal overpass (15-15) and Fesl forced one from the left side that smacked into the block and fell for the point (16-16). Again, it was Fesl who gave Notre Dame the lead by sending back UofL’s first hit (18-17), but Louisville would pull away and led by as many as four at 26-22 and 27-23. The Cardinals bumped the lead up to five (29-24), but sophomore Serinity Phillips (Valley Center, Calif./Valley Center) stuck one into the back corner for the Irish prior to UofL taking game point.
Both teams came out hitting for high marks in the opening frame. Louisville (.531) and Notre Dame (.350) each received 17 assists from their respective setters. Notre Dame had 21 kills to begin the match but managed only 13 in game two. UofL had 18 kills in each of the match’s three stanzas.
Phillips dropped a shallow kill for the first point of game two. UofL’s lift violation gave Notre Dame a point and knotted things at 5-5. On the next play, Fesl fired one in to put the Irish in front before Louisville took the next five scores. Stremick and Phillips came together for the block to cut into the Louisville lead, 11-9. But the Cardinals surged back out to a 16-10 lead, and would go on top by 20-13 until Sciacca’s kill down the right line made it 20-14.
Stremick had two stops and then slammed down the Louisville overpass to put the Irish up, 3-2, coming out of intermission. Louisville roared back to lead by as many as seven (15-8). Sophomore Jamel Nicholas (Gibsonia, Pa./Pine-Richland) tossed up an ace (17-13) and a Stasiuk kill (17-14) put Notre Dame in a position to make a run. A Cardinal attack landed out of bounds (17-15), and the Irish found themselves in a two-point hole. UofL was called for a four-hit violation (22-20) but took the next four points. Sciacca snapped the Irish scoring drought (26-21), and scores from Fesl (26-22) and Stasiuk (27-23) set the table for a three-point deficit on a Louisville error (27-24). Stasiuk fired in two more kills, and Stremick doubled with sophomore Tara Enzweiler (Raleigh, N.C./Cardinal Gibbons) for the block at 29-27. Tatyana Kolesnikova tipped one over the Irish defense for the match’s final point. Kolesnikova finished with a match-high 16 kills on 31 swings for a .419 average.
–ND–