Kendra Haselhorst followed her first career triple-double with a career-high 15 digs and a team-high 17 kills to lead Illinois State past Southern Illinois 15-5, 15-10, 15-x in a Missouri Valley Conference volleyball match Saturday at Davies Gym.
Haselhorst, who had 23 kills, 11 digs and 11 blocks Friday at Evansville, had 11 of her digs in game two alone while continuing a string of 33 straight matches in double figures in kills. For the week, the senior all-America candidate registered 64 kills, 35 digs and 25 blocks in 13 games. She hammered the Salukis for a .536 hitting percentage while leading Illinois State to a .316 attack mark to Southern Illinois .103.
Redbird coach Sharon Dingman is having trouble finding words to express how Haselhorst is playing.
Those are numbers for national player of the week, said Dingman. The numbers speak for themselves. The game plan is stop Kendra Haselhorst and stop Megan Stephenson, but teams are struggling to do that. It set things up for our team.
Dingman thinks setter Becky Weber, who had 41 set assists against SIU and leads the Valley, has a lot to do with Haselhorsts success.
I thought Becky played great tonight putting people in great positions to get kills, said Dingman. Becky is really at a point where shes understanding how to get people their kills and using her middles to set that up. Last night, Kendra only got five swings in the first game, but she went to Staci Boyce and other hitters and helped us win the game.
Dingman also was pleased to see her team play well on back-to-back nights on the road.
We talked to the team about that before the match, said Dingman. We need to show signs in improvement every week. To win the Valley tournament, you have play emotional matches back-to-back. We challenged ourselves to play with the energy to beat this team in three and I think we did. It was great to see.
Illinois State 12-7 overall, 9-2 in the Missouri Valley Conference, won their fifth straight Valley match with a 10-7 advantage in blocks, a 45-44 edge in digs and a 52-36 edge in kills.
Southern Illinois 8-14, 1-10 in the Valley, was led by Kristie Kemner with 15 kills and 12 digs. SIU lost to Illinois State for the 20th straight time dating back 10 seasons.
After SIU led 2-1 in the first game, five Megan OConnell service points and four more by Abby Lewis helped ISU jump to a 12-2 lead and command of the game. Kristie Kemner dominated SIUs first-game offense with eight of the Salukis 14 kills.
ISU rolled up a 7-1 lead in game two before Redbird coach Sharon Dingman tinkered with the lineup. SIU gathered some momentum off some Redbird hitting errors and eventually closed to 12-10. But Megan Stephenson slammed the door and finished the game with a couple of overpasses off Haselhorst serves.
ISU hit .439 in game three, bouncing back from a 5-4 deficit with the final 11 points of the match.
The Redbirds return home for a 7 p.m. Friday match with Indiana State at Redbird Arena.
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