Nov. 3, 2006
Final Stats
Iowa City, Iowa -
After taking many leads in games only to come up short as of late, Illinois head coach Don Hardin was seeking the fighting effort that lasted the entire match to get his club out of a three-match losing streak. Friday night in Iowa City the Illini got it in a hard-fought 19-30, 30-28, 31-29, 39-37 victory over Iowa.
"If these scores don't indicate a fight in us, I don't know what does," Hardin said. "This was a tremendous fighting effort. The way we chiseled away at them all match long, finally wearing them down at the end was really remarkable."
Iowa was the aggressor in the first game, taking an early 8-2 lead and never looking back. The Hawkeyes used the arm of Jen Barcus, who had five kills while hitting .714 in that game. The Hawkeyes out-hit the Illini .325-.068. Illinois also had four service errors in that game.
After that Illinois turned it around to claim the final three games, all by two points. Illinois got efforts from a lot of different players, many of them from freshmen and sophomores. Freshman Kylie McCulley had a match-high 21 kills on 58 swings and hitting .241 while also playing the back row, where she added two aces and eight digs. Fellow freshman Ashley Edinger had her second 30 digs match of the season with an even 30 and posting a .971 serve receive percentage on 70 chances.
Illinois turned up the effort defensively. After Iowa hit .325 in game one, they limited the Hawkeyes to .208 or less the rest of the way thanks to a season-high 82 digs. Senior Beth Vrdsky (16) and sophomore Lizzie Bazzetta (13) were also in double figures in digs while Bazzetta added 63 assists.
Offensively, Illinois used a balanced attack with four players reaching double figures in kills. Following McCulley's 21 were junior Vicki Brown with 18, sophomore Kayani Turner with 16 and junior Stefanie Alde with 10.
After the first game, the tenth straight individual game loss for the Illini (14-10 overall, 5-9 in the Big Ten), Illinois finally turned the corner. "We were just determined that we weren't going to do this again," Edinger said.
Illinois used a strong service game to pull out game number two, its first game win in its last 11 tries. Edinger keyed the deciding run with three service points making it 27-23 Illini. She had one ace in the rally, but kept the Hawkeyes out of system most of the game. The Illini, meanwhile, used the arm of its middles to its advantage thanks in part to some strong passing. Stephanie Alde and Rachel Henderson each had key kills down the stretch of the game. The Illini serving led in part to seven Iowa hitting errors in the game.
McCulley really got going in the third game with eight kills in the game. Three straight putaways from McCulley, a Rachel Henderson ace, and a Brown kill off the backslide gave Illinois a 20-14 lead. At the same time Iowa's Catherine Smale (23 kills) got her hitting stroke going, helping cut the lead to 21-20. The teams traded side outs most of the way from there.
Both teams elevated their play in game four. The Illini turned a 10-7 deficit into a 19-15 lead, but Iowa came right back to take a 24-21 advantage. The Illini and Hawkeyes fought off game and match point chances down the stretch before sophomore Rachel Henderson finished the match off with a kill from the middle.
Henderson, who has played sparingly due to injury, had five kills and while hitting .500 and also came up with game points in both game two and game four. The 39-37 score was the deepest into a match for Illinois since taking a game from Michigan State 40-38 in 2002.
"The scores, the stats, the adversity we're going through really combined marks a culmination of a fighting effort," Hardin concluded.
