Kylee Osborne slammed seven of her season-best 21 kills in game three to lead Indiana State past Illinois State 23-30, 30-27, 30-20, 30-28 in Missouri Valley Conference volleyball Sunday at ISU Arena.
In the regular-season finale for both teams, the Sycamore offense took control by hitting .284 in the final three games and edged the Birds 75-59 in team kills. Cheryl Berg had 19 kills and 20 digs for the home team. Jennifer Richardson added 12 kills as Indiana State moved to 14-16 overall, 8-10 in the Valley.
Jenny Kabbes led the Redbirds with 16 kills,
Megan Stephenson added 14 and
Megan O'Connell had 10.
Abby Lewis had 15 digs and Kabbes had a hand in eight of Illinois States 19 blocks. The Birds out-blocked the Sycamores 19-8 in team blocks.
According to Redbird coach
Sharon Dingman , Indiana State just played a lot better than it did during a 3-0 loss at Redbird Arena less than 24 hours earlier.
Give them credit, said Dingman. They improved their play from last night by a ton. I knew it would be hard for us because they would play better today.
But she still believes her team is playing well heading into this weeks conference tournament.
Weve played well enough in the last week to go into the tournament feeling confident, said Dingman.
Sycamore coach Jim Bertoli, who criticized his teams effort Saturday in Normal, gave all the credit to the players.
After we won game two, I told them (his players) that it was all their doing, said Bertoli. It wasnt me. It wasnt the staff. They just made up their minds that they wanted to play.
With Stephenson landing 4 of 5 attempts, the Birds hit .350 in winning game one to Indiana States .133.
The Sycamores chased the Redbirds through most of game two, blowing by Illinois State with a 5-0 run to take a 22-19 lead. Kabbes stopped the bleeding with a kill and a service ace. The Birds led 26-24 and 27-26, but Richardson collected a pair of kills and Bethany Ullig scored an ace to help Indiana State win game two with a 4-0 finish.
The home team jumped ahead 11-4 in game three before a pair of Becky Weber aces brought the Birds within 11-7, and shrunk the lead to 16-14 on a Kabbes kill. But Osborne drilled three straight kills and Kelly Spisak served an ace in the middle of a 10-4 Sycamore run to put Indiana State back in command and up 2-1 in games.
Illinois State continued to have passing problems and Indiana State continued to hit well through game four, leading by as many as five before four straight kills by Stephenson closed the gap to 23-21. Richardson stepped up with consecutive kills to keep the Birds from getting any closer.
Indiana State beat Illinois State for just the third time in 35 meetings.
The Redbirds play Creighton in the first round of the State Farm-Missouri Valley Conference Tournament at 12:30 p.m. Friday. Bradley and Indiana State open the tournament at 10 a.m. The winner of the Redbird-Bluejay match meets Northern Iowa at 7:30 p.m., with Southwest Missouri State meeting the Bradley-Indiana State winner at 5:30 p.m.
