Kendra Haselhorst had her first career triple double and Sharon Dingman earned her 200th career coaching victory as Illinois State downed Evansville 17-15, 14-16, 15-5, 5-15, 15-6 win at Carson Center.
Haselhorst had 23 kills, 11 digs and 11 blocks for the Redbirds, becoming the fourth Redbird player in history to top 1,500 career kills. She has 1,501. The 6-foot-2 senior and her roommate, Abby Lewis, played huge roles in the deciding fifth game. Haselhorst had four of the six Redbird kills and Lewis, who had 22 digs and seven blocks for the match, had a pair of key service aces to give the Redbirds a comfortable lead.
Dingman got a lot out of a lot of players, including Staci Boyces 14 kills, Erin Jones 15 digs off the bench, B Corbins 11 digs plus another stand-out performance by Weber, who had 52 set assists, 5 kills and 17 digs.
Evansville, 13-10, 6-4, was led by Smanatha Butler with 21 kills and 28 digs, plus Ladi Iya, with 18 kills, 17 digs and 6 blocks. ISU head a 17-12 team block advantage, but UE had 80 kills to ISUs 69.
When we needed people to make things happen, they made things happen, said Dingman. Except for the fourth game--which was the Ladi Iya Show--we got a lot out of a lot of people.
Dingman, in her first season at Illinois State, won 167 matches in eight years at Butler, 22 in a year at Auburn and is 11-7 in her first season at Illinois State. She is 200-121 in her 10th season as a college head coach.
Im very happy Kendra Haselhorst is a senior, said Evansville coach Mark Hardaway. We focus our entire game plan on her and she still hits .525 on 40 swings. She is some kind of player. Ladi had a pretty good night, but we didnt give her the ball enough.
Illinois State moved to 8-2 in the Valley by raising its all-time series record against the Aces to 14-0. Haselhorst became the 11th player in Valley history to reach 1,500 career kills. Already the Illinois State career block leader, Haselhorst also is the Valley career kill percentage leader, adding to that figure by hitting .525 against UE.
Lewis served four straight points to help the Birds take a 5-3 lead in game one, but Julie Groves took the service line and reeled-off seven straight points to put ISU in a catch-up mode, trailing 10-5. It was 11-6 when the Birds started scrambling back. Lewis served the two points to tie and give ISU a 12-11 lead. Back-to-back blocks by Megan OConnell and Megan Stephenson got the Birds to game point at 14-11. UE stopped three serves for game point and tied the score at 14-14, then 15-15 before Boyce served a Haselhorst kill and then an ace to end it.
UE took a 12-6 lead in game two. Boyce had three kills to help the Birds come back to 12-10 and 14-12, then fought to a 14-14 tie before the Aces Samantha Butler served the final two points.
During a flurry of 26 side outs, the teams were knotted at 5-5 in game three when the Redbirds kicked it in. The Redbird block sent the Aces offense scurrying repeatedly and Haselhorst finished five points with her six kills for the game. UE took an 8-2 lead in game four before three Haselhorst kills closed it to 9-5. Then Iya started rolling with four kills and a block to help the Aces pull away to 14-5. She served point No. 15 to tie the match at 2 games apiece.
Weber had a kill, an ace and three service points to jump-start the Birds to a 6-2 lead in the rally game. UE closed to 7-5 before a Haselhorst kill on a slide and back-to-back Lewis aces put ISU ahead 10-5.
The Redbirds continue their road trip against Southern Illinois at 7 p.m. Saturday.
