Southern Illinoise University Athletics
Southern Illinois University
14-7, 5-3MVC
Drake University
13-13, 4-5MVC
Saluki volleyball sweeps Drake, 3-0
10/23/2015 | 12:00:00 | Women's Volleyball
By Elizabeth Robinson
SIUSalukis.com
CARBONDALE, Ill. -- The Saluki volleyball team opened Homecoming weekend with a fast 3-0 sweep against Drake on Friday night, extending their record to 15-7 overall and 6-3 in Missouri Valley play. At the conclusion of Friday's match, SIU is officially halfway through conference play this season.
Andrea Estrada came out strong, once again leading the Salukis in kills and attempts with 14 and 26, respectively. She also led the team in digs with 16. Taylor Pippen also came out firing with nine kills for the highest efficiency of the match, only hitting two errors on 16 attempts for a .438 attack percentage.
SIU's offense got off to a quick start in the first set, hitting at a .429 clip and siding out at 81 percent. The Salukis were able to swing for 28 attempts resulting in 15 kills and only three errors. Drake errors plus three consecutive kills by Estrada and one by sophomore Abby Barrow gave SIU six straight points to close out the first set, 25-15.
The first frame only saw eight digs for the Salukis, but SIU's defense came alive in the second set, grabbing 29 digs. Drake a small lead to start, but a string of serves by freshman Tara Routliffe accompanied by kills from Pippen put the Salukis up for the remainder of the frame. Pippen continued to hit at a high efficiency through the second frame with six kills and zero errors on seven attempts at that point in the match for a .857 efficiency. Once again, three straight kills by Estrada plus one by Barrow finished the frame, this time 25-18 in SIU's favor.
"In the second set, digging 29 balls is unbelievable. We turned a corner and started doing things better," head coach Justin Ingram said. "We continued to be offensive minded and aggressive with our attack and just tried to give better efforts at each and every opportunity on defense."
Drake and SIU went back and forth coming out of the break at the start of the third frame, but the Salukis were quickly able to grab hold of the momentum and hold the advantage throughout the set. Junior McKenzie Dorris served for four straight points to widen the point gap, which would eventually reach to as many as five points and come as close as one.
Junior Shannon Hagen made her entrance in the third, coming away with two kills and two digs to add to the Salukis' efforts. SIU finished with 16 kills and 24 digs in the final frame. SIU's setters, Meg Viggars and Hannah Kaminsky, set for a very even distribution throughout the match and particularly in the final frame with 11 assists to Hagen, nine to Pippen, eight to Estrada and Routliffe each and seven to sophomore Nellie Fredriksson.
A kill by Fredriksson put SIU at match point, 24-19. Drake held SIU for a point on a kill by Kyla Inderski, who tied with Makena Schoene for most Drake kills with seven total, but an Inderski attack error on the following play sealed the deal for SIU, 25-20. "We distributed the ball at a good level, giving the right side, left side and the middle some pretty good swings, which was a positive for the team," Ingram said.
SIU will take on Northern Iowa tomorrow, a team that topped SIU 3-1 in the opening weekend of conference play. Last year SIU topped UNI at home in a five set match.
"UNI will put a little more pressure on us than Drake did tonight, but we're happy about getting out of here in three sets tonight to be able to move on to this next match," Ingram said.
Match time on Saturday is 4 p.m.
