Indiana University Athletics
Indiana University
East Tennessee
Volleyball Sweeps ETSU to Begin adidas Classic
9/14/2007 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
Sept. 14, 2007
Final Stats |
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BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - The Indiana University volleyball team opened the 2007 IU adidas Classic with a 3-0 sweep over East Tennessee State. Indiana improves to 8-2 on the year with their fourth consecutive win.
Junior Erica Short connected on 18 kills while hitting .359 and dug seven balls while Freshman Ashley Benson, a Bloomington, Indiana native, seemed to be energized by the home crowd. She recorded 10 kills with no errors and six blocks in the Hoosier home-opener held at Assembly Hall Friday night.
"The crowd was awesome," said Head Coach Sherry Dunbar. "That was a goal of ours to come out and play really, really hard with a lot of effort, a lot of energy and really get the crowd involved."
The match began with Sophomore Kelsey Hall at the service line, and she remained there for the next six points as Indiana seized the first five points of the match before a service error ended the early run. The Buccaneers slowly fought their way back into the game however, cutting the IU lead to a lone point at 18-17. Indiana then got back on track and captured 12 of the next 16 points for the 30-21 win.
Short belted six more kills in Indiana's 30-28 game-two win, the same amount she recorded in game one. Once again, the Hoosiers took an early lead before seeing ETSU crawl their way back into the game late in the contest. A kill by ETSU's Callie Kiselich evened the score as late as 28-28. Kiselich followed with a serve in which Freshman Mara Hilgenberg converted a good pass into a Hoosier point by setting up Benson for the kill. The Bucs took a timeout, but sent their next attack attempt long to end the game.
"I thought Benson had a great match," said Dunbar. "She has been under the radar all year and we have been really pushing her, and she had her coming out party tonight. She made a huge difference in the match."
Short duplicated her first two games with six terminations in game three as well. Hall and Senior Juli Pierce played key roles in holding East Tennessee State to a .103 hitting efficiency in game three by recording eight and six digs, respectively, in the third game alone. The Hoosiers jumped out to an early lead for the third time of the night, but did not allow the Buccaneers to get back into this one, rolling to a 30-22 win.
"It was nice to get a three-game win because that's always tough to do against a team that knows how to win," said Dunbar. "East Tennessee is a team that knows how to win, they won 20-plus matches last season and went undefeated in the conference. Teams like that come out in the third game fired up and ready to go."
The Cream and Crimson continue the adidas Classic with a 10 a.m match on Saturday versus North Carolina Central. Then it's the big match-up against nationally-ranked #23/#22 St. John's at 8 p.m. inside Assembly Hall.
Players Mentioned
