Southern Illinois University
Brown
Volleyball blows past Brown, 3-0
09/03/2010 | 12:00:00 | Women's Volleyball
Sept. 3, 2010
By Dana Ingraham
SIUSalukis.com
STORRS, Conn. - Recording its third shutout of the season and its second in a row, the Southern Illinois volleyball team cruised to a 3-0 victory over Brown (27-25, 25-11, 25-11) in the first round of the UConn Toyota Classic Friday night.
SIU (3-1) was slow coming out of the gate, down 5-1 early in the first set. The Salukis chipped away but Brown (0-1) remained ahead until a kill from Sydney Clark finally tied the score at 14. Southern would not take the lead until Alicia Johnson delivered a service ace to put the Dawgs up 24-23. The two teams tied again at 24 and then 25, before a Rachael Brown kill and an Alysia Mayes ace put the set away for good.
The Bears kept it close to begin the second set, leading 7-4 on back-to-back kills, but it wouldn't take long to light a Southern fire. Sparked by a kill from Johnson, the Salukis scored seven-straight points, their largest lead of the set coming at 19-9 fueled by three kills from Jasmine Conner. Bailey Yeager served the last five points of the set, throwing in two of her career-high four service aces on the night to give SIU the decisive 25-11 win.
It was easygoing for the Salukis after that, as the closest Brown would get in the third set would be a 2-2 tie before SIU ran away with the match.
SIU hit above .250 for the third time in four matches, posting a team percentage of .360 led by Johnson and Conner who had eight kills each. Mayes put up six kills while Rachael Brown and Jennifer Berwanger each had five.
In addition to her standout serving, Yeager paced the Saluki defense with a team-high 12 digs. Rachael Brown contributed seven digs to go along with 25 assists.
The UConn Toyota Classic continues Saturday when Southern faces off against Hartford at 9 a.m. CT, followed by a night matchup with tournament host Connecticut at 6:30 p.m. CT.
