Southern Illinoise University Athletics
Southern Illinois University
Evansville
Volleyball falls to Evansville in five
11/20/2009 | 12:00:00 | Women's Volleyball
Nov. 20, 2009
By Shalae Patrick
www.SIUSalukis.com
EVANSVILLE, Ind. - The Evansville volleyball team put four players in double-digit kills and recorded 121 digs to take down Southern Illinois in five sets, 28-26,12-25,17-25,25-22,8-15, in the final Missouri Valley Conference match of the regular season Friday night.
The Purple Aces (14-16, 7-11 MVC) out-hit the Salukis (18-11, 7-11 MVC) 72-kills to 52, led by Ginta Gabruseva with 18 kills and 20 digs. Emily Wandersee, Brooke Maher and Rachel Robinson recorded 17, 15 and 13 kills respectively.
"Just as we have the last few matches, we struggled with ball control," Saluki head coach Brenda Winkeler said. "We just put up too easy of an offense and they were able to capitalize on it. (Evansville) just ran the better offense tonight."
Chandra Roberson led Southern with 14 kills and four block assists in her final regular-season match in a Saluki uniform, while Sydney Clark added 13 kills, one solo and two block assists.
Jennifer Berwanger had a career-high 31 digs to go with nine kills. Lauren Blumhorst and Alicia Johnson pitched in 26 and 19 digs respectively.
Rachael Brown led the Saluki offense with 43 assists, adding 13 digs and three block assists for her third-straight double-double.
"Evansville played extremely hard the entire match," Winkeler added. "We had spurts of energy and battle in us, but they just out-played us."
Julie Sylvester led UE's defense with a match-high 38 digs.
The Salukis await their fate in the tournament, currently tied for sixth-place in the league standings with Illinois State. If Missouri State can defeat Illinois State on the Redbirds' home court Saturday night, he Salukis will take the No. 6 seed into the MVC Tournament set to begin Thursday night in Omaha, Neb.
