Southern Illinoise University Athletics
Southern Illinois University
Illinois State
Volleyball falls 3-1 at Illinois State
10/08/2011 | 12:00:00 | Women's Volleyball
Oct. 8, 2011
By Bill Ford
SIUSalukis.com
CARBONDALE, Ill. -- Three Southern Illinois volleyball players tallied 15 or more kills, but the Salukis couldn't complete a comeback in a four-set loss at Illinois State Saturday night.
Southern (9-7, 3-4 Missouri Valley Conference) fell to the Redbirds (12-8, 4-4 MVC) by scores of 18-25, 25-22, 19-25, 23-25 to snap a three-match winning streak.
The Salukis looked to have a solid shot at pushing the match to a fifth set after rallying from a five-point deficit late in the fourth set. Southern used a 6-2 run to take a lead at 23-22 in the fourth, only to have the Redbirds respond with three straight points to take the match. ISU scored match point on an ace by Laura Wakefield.
"They were doing a good job of serving us short all night," said SIU head coach Brenda Winkeler. "Their serving at the end came through. We really would have liked pull through and pushed it to five sets."
Southern had a solid night offensively, paced by the trio of Jessica Whitehead, Laura Thole and Alsyia Mayes. Whitehead finished with 17 kills while Thole had 16 and Mayes added 15 on a .577 hitting percentage. Outside those three, however, no other Saluki had more than two kills.
"We had three players offensively do a nice job," Winkeler said. "We just couldn't find anybody in another position to get some offense going."
The Redbirds had no such issues. Shannon McGlaughlan led all players with 20 kills and LeighAnn Hranka was close behind at 18 kills, but four other ISU players had five or more kills.
"Illinois State put up an offense with two main players and some auxiliary players that did a nice job tipping some balls," Winkeler said.
Southern had more blocks with 9.5 compared with ISU's 6.0, but the Redbirds held a slight 79-76 edge in digs. Winkeler said the Salukis weren't as sharp as they needed to be with their ball control.
"We definitely got to get in the gym and get some people to be patient on defense," Winkeler said. "We saw that patience a little more last night than we did tonight."
Junior setter Rachel Brown led the defense with a career-best 23 digs to go along with 43 assists for her 11th double-double of the season. Bailey Yeager added 18 digs for SIU while Thole chipped in 14 for her 10th double-double of the season.
The Salukis come back to Davies Gym Friday and Saturday, Oct. 14-15, for two tough matchups against Missouri State and Wichita State, who stand second and third in the MVC standings, respectively.
