Southern Illinois University
SEMO
Volleyball shuts out SEMO
09/12/2006 | 12:00:00 | Women's Volleyball
Sept. 12, 2006
By Shalae Schulte
www.siusalukis.com
CARBONDALE, Ill. - The Southern Illinois volleyball team fought off two close games and turned it on offensively in the third to sweep Southeast Missouri State (34-32, 30-27, 30-21) in Davies Gym Tuesday night.
The Saluki offense wasn't stellar, but it didn't need to be to pick up the first sweep of the Redhawks since 1991.
SIU hit .166, but held SEMO to .046 in the victory.
Southern stuck to the game plan to shut down the Redhawks top players and did so overpowering the visitors in nearly every category. SEMO out-dug the Salukis 76-73, their scrappy defense keeping them in the close games.
Game one drug the Salukis score to 34 points, for a 94 point match total, the largest in school history in a three-game match.
"Our offense really struggled tonight, we hit .087 and still won the second game," Saluki head coach Brenda Winkeler said. "Between games I just told the team to continue to do the things we were doing well. We had an outstanding blocking night. We followed our game plan to a `T'. We started to get hot on offense that third game and pulled away."
Johannah Yutzy finished the night with 15 kills in the middle, adding one solo and four of the Salukis' season-high 26 block assists.
Outside Kristie Berwanger tied a career-high five block assists to go along with her 12 kills.
"We really tried to use our height at the net," Winkeler said. "Their outside block was shorter so Kristie was effective hitting over the block."
Haley Hann and Chandra Roberson added six and seven block assists respectively, while setter Erika Bartruff added three to go along with her 37 assist, 11 dig double-double, her first as a Saluki.
"This is the best that we've followed a game plan this year," Winkeler added of her team. "We really did what we needed to do."
Defensively, Kristy Elswick and Kari Buehlhorn combined for 36 digs. Elswick led all players with 24.
SIU begins Missouri Valley Conference play this weekend when they travel to Nebraska and Iowa for a two-match trip against Drake Friday at 7 p.m. and Creighton Saturday at 7 p.m.
