Nov. 4, 2007
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – Three players combined for 53 of the University of Notre Dame volleyball team’s 72 kills in a BIG EAST Conference victory against South Florida on Sunday. Sophomore Serinity Phillips (Valley Center, Calif./Valley Center) and junior Justine Stremick (Langdon, N.D./Langdon Area) each had 18 kills and sophomore Megan Fesl (Arlington Heights, Ill./John Hersey) totaled 17 in front of a Joyce Center crowd of 1,205. Both Stremick and Phillips also had seven blocks.
The 3-1 (30-25, 30-24, 21-30, 30-21) win pushed Notre Dame’s home winning streak to four matches and improved its record to 11-12 overall and 7-5 against BIG EAST opponents.
South Florida (16-8 overall, 7-5 BIG EAST) was led by Marcela Gurgel and her match-high 23 kills. She also shot in four aces and was one of three Bulls with double-doubles.
Only one player on the Irish roster locked a double-double, as senior Ashley Tarutis (Long Beach, Calif./Los Alamitos) distributed a season-high 63 assists while getting under 14 digs. Classmate Adrianna Stasiuk (Park Ridge, Ill./Maine South) fell one kill shy of her 18th double-double of the season. The outside hitter had nine kills and 13 digs along with one of three Irish aces.
Freshman Kellie Sciacca (Monument, Colo./Lewis-Palmer) had 10 kills on 18 swings with an error for a .500 mark, as the Irish managed to finish the afternoon with a .275 hitting percentage. First-year libero Angela Puente (Redondo Beach, Calif./Bishop Montgomery) piled a match-high 18 digs to equal her career-best total set earlier in the season against Florida.
“I am really happy with the team’s performance and I feel like we executed the game plan well,” said head coach Debbie Brown. “We had hoped that our middles would have a successful night, and they did. Ashley (Tarutis) did a nice job of getting all of the hitters involved, and we had good contributions off the bench.”
The offensive efforts of Phillips and Stremick merged to total half of ND’s 30 points in game one. Stremick wrapped up the frame with eight kills on 12 attempts for a .583 percentage and Phillips had seven kills. Twenty Tarutis assists led to a .310 team hitting percentage.
The Irish got on the board with a pair of Stremick kills. Phillips went with a pair of early tips over the USF blockers, then Stremick gave Notre Dame its first lead when, after continuing the play with a pair of stops at the net, she converted on a swing to make the score 9-8. Phillips and Stremick leaped for a block at 11-8, followed by a solo stop by Phillips at 12-8. The lead stayed at four points on Stasiuk’s backrow bomb (14-10) and Sciacca’s kill off a quickset (19-15). But USF tied it at 20-20 with Gurgel’s ace before Nakia Williams’ solo block gave the Bulls a 21-20 lead. Stremick threw down a freeball to put Notre Dame back ahead, 22-21, adding a shot down the right line to spark a 5-0 run to take final control of the game.
It was then Fesl who came up big in game two with six kills on nine swings as Notre Dame recorded a .366 hitting average. An 11-11 tie quickly transpired into a 15-11 gap in favor of ND when Fesl launched a kill from the left side then sent a screamer down the line following a South Florida timeout. The Bulls put together a rally to draw a 19-19 tie, and Notre Dame took the next three points as it held on to the lead for good after that point. Fesl had a solo block (24-20), a powerful facial (26-20), then finished the rally with her final kill of the frame at 28-22.
Three service aces and six kills by Gurgel in the third set proved to be the difference the Bulls needed to win their lone game by a nine-point margin. Notre Dame scored four-straight to open play, which was answered by five-in-a-row from the Bulls. Kristina Fabris had a kill to give the visitors an eight-point lead (22-14), and they would add one more score to that margin as Gurgel ended the game with back-to-back aces.
Five blocks – including three by Phillips – helped Notre Dame seal the match with a game-four win. On the offensive side of the net, four kills apiece by Sciacca, Fesl, and Stasiuk were enough for the Irish to overcome nine ties and five lead changes. Stasiuk and Puente each had six digs over the stretch.
With two matches left on the regular season schedule, Notre Dame remains at home for meetings with Cincinnati (Nov. 9) and Louisville (Nov. 11).
–ND–