Oct. 25, 2000

Box Score

Champaign, IL - The University of Illinois volleyball team lost a heartbreaker against Purdue Univeristy Wednesday night in five games in front of 909 fans at Huff Hall. The Illini lost three games to two by the score of 15-4, 11-15, 5-15, 15-10, and 9-15. With the loss the Illini fall to 11-11 overall and 2-9 in the Big Ten. Purdue improves to 11-12 overall and 3-8 overall.

Illinois dominated game one 15-4, including an 8-0 run to start off the match led by four points and two aces by junior Amber Lindner. Game two went Purdue's way, 15-11 as the Boilers raced out to leads of 5-1 and 9-4. The Illini came back and took an 11-9 lead at one point, but Purdue closed out the game with a 6-0 run.

In game three Purdue got off to a hot start leading 7-1. The Illini cut the Purdue lead to 7-4 but Purdue held off the Illini with another 6-0 run to close out the game. Game four was tight throughout with four different tie scores, but a 6-1 run by Illinois won the game. Game five saw a 6-3 Illinois lead to a timeout by Purdue. After the timeout the Boilermakers scored 12 out of the last 15 points, including a 5-0 run to close the match.

For the match three different Illini players had over 20 kills. Senior Betsy Spicer and sophomore Anne Koester led the team with 22 kills each, with Koester's performance setting a new career high. Junior Shadia Haddad also contributed 21 kills.

"If you go to five games a lot of times over the coures of a season, you are not going to win every time," said Illinois Head Coach Don Hardin. "We have to be mentally prepared the entire match, and we were not prepared for games two and three."

Illinois returns to action Friday evening at home against Ohio State. Action is slated to begin at 7 p.m. at Huff Hall.