Sept. 25, 2004

Final Stats

Champaign, Ill. - Freshman setter Stephanie Obermeier tallied 47 assists and distributed the ball evenly to her hitters in leading #13 Illinois to a 30-22, 30-21, 30-27 victory over Indiana on Saturday night in front of a crowd of 1810 at Huff Hall. Illinois improves to 9-2 overall and 1-1 in the Big Ten. Indiana falls to 6-8, 0-2.

The Illini were especially potent in the middle with sophomore Megan Griffin had a career night with 10 kills, two aces, two blocks, and an attack percentage of .750. Fellow sophomore middle blocker Meghan Macdonald, who entered the week third in the Big Ten in attack percentage, added 11 kills on 22 swings for attack percentage of .409. Outside hitters Rasa Virsilaite and Rachel VanMeter added 11 and 10 kills, respectively, for a well balanced Illinois attack. The Illini hit .441 for the evening, including .441 in the third game.

"I was impressed with Stephanie's willingness of running the middle," said Illinois Head Coach Don Hardin. "It was a gutsy performance. She is making big improvements and getting better and better. But the most important thing is she isn't shying away from the middle.

"Meghan and Meg are a big part of what we want to do," Hardin added. "They really hit the daylights out of it tonight."

"My confidence has really improved since I've been playing a lot now," said Griffin, who is making her first string of starts with absence of Jen Hynds the last six matches. "I was nervous when I first started, and while I'm not fully comfortable yet, I'm getting there."

The Illini played relatively error free volleyball with just 15 attack errors and four service errors on the night, while even a .417 attack percentage in the third game left the Hoosiers with just a .232 percentage on the night after hitting just .154 and .135, respectively, in the first and second games. Illinois also had five blocks on the evening. The Illini back row was solid all night with Beth Vrdsky and Lauren Harks pacing the club with nine digs apiece.

Illinois dominated the majority of the match. After an early 3-1 deficit in game one, Illinois didn't trail again until 7-4 in the second game. After Illinois evened the scored at 11-11, the teams basically exchanged points until late in the match. With Indiana leading 24-23, Illinois used the serve of Kathleen Bazzetta to take a 27-24 advantage and never were headed after that.

Illinois travels to Northwestern (Oct. 1) and Wisconsin (Oct. 3) and return home to Huff Hall the weekend of Oct. 8-9 with Michigan and Michigan State coming to town.