Abby Lewis had nine of her 15 kills and 10 of her 20 digs in the first game to lead Illinois State past Creighton 15-10, 19-17, 15-11 at South Gym to secure a bye for the first round of the 2000 State Farm-Missouri Valley Conference Tournament.
Lewis, who hit .500 for the match on 15 kills and 1 error in 28 attempts, got support from Megan OConnells career-high 22 kills, Kendra Haselhorsts 21 kills and 15 digs, plus Jackie Utzs 14 kills as the three-game match took 2 hours, 5 minutes. The Redbirds, 17-8 overall, 14-2 in the Missouri Valley, won their 10th straight conference match and its fourth in a row overall--the longest Illinois State winning streak of the season. Winning nine of 11 this year since a major mid-October lineup change, ISU is the only team to qualify for all 19 Valley tournaments and has won at least 14 league matches in each of the past six seasons.
Redbird coach Sharon Dingman thought getting Lewis and Megan Stephenson, who had nine kills, out early against the scrappy Jays.
Abby had a great night hitting last night, said Dingman of Lewis 6 kills in 16 attempts without an error. We wanted her and Megan to be involved early because we knew what kind of match it would be.
Creighton fell to 15-10 overall, 9-7 in the Valley despite 18 kills by Melanie Keolanui and 17 by Melissa Walsh. The Jays ISU had a .316 to .232 hitting advantage and out-dug Creighton 82-77.
Lewis had nine kills in 12 attempts in that first game. combining with Haselhorst for 17 of ISUs 28 first-game kills as ISU hit .373 in that game. Dingman was surprised with the hitting percentages in the match.
I didnt expect that we would hit .300 and that they would hit that well, said Dingman. At (Redbird Arena), neither team could get its offense going because of the defense. Today, there were times when neither team could stop the other.
With two quick kills early in game two, Haselhorst became the second ISU player and just the sixth Missouri Valley Conference player to reach 1,600 career kills. She also surpassed former Redbird star Cathy Olson to move into second place on the all-time Redbird kill list. Olson had 1,595 from 1983 to 1987. Haselhorst, who leads the Valley in kills, has 1,611 for her career.
The second game, which took 45 minutes to complete, saw the Redbirds took a 9-6 lead with the help of five Haselhorst service points before Melanie Keolanui got hot with five kills to help the Jays take the lead at 14-11.
ISU battled back to a 14-14 tie by holding Creighton scoreless on seven service attempts. OConnells overpass kill put ISU at game point, but Walsh and Keolanui blocked for a 15-15 tie. The teams battled through another complete service rotation before back-to-back OConnell kills gave ISU a 19-17 win. Haselhorst had 12 kills and OConnell added 11 as ISU had 38 kills in 91 attempts in the game.
Dingman was at a loss to explain the decisive elements of game two.
We didnt do anything any better than they did, said Dingman. Early in game two, I thought we squandered a couple of opportunities, but the big thing is that our team stayed composed throughout the game. This team has a lot of resolve. Even (Friday) night at Drake when we were down in game three, I knew wed come back and win because I could see it in their eyes. Our players wanted it.
Game three was tied at 5-5 when Becky Weber took the service line and served eight straight points to seemingly put ISU in control, but the Jays battled back to within 13-10 and 14-11 before the Birds finished it on a block by Stephenson and Lewis.
The Redbirds complete the regular season by meeting Northern Iowa at 7 p.m. Friday and Bradley at 7 p.m. Saturday, both in Redbird Arena.
