Sara Younes had 10 of match-high 16 kills in game two as league-leading Wichita State beat Illinois State 30-27, 30-23, 30-18 in a Missouri Valley Conference volleyball match Friday at Redbird Arena.
Savannah Knowles led Illinois State with 11 kills and Laura Doornbos added 10 for the Redbirds, but WSU had a 47-31 dig advantage and an 11-10 block edge. Younes had 14 digs and four blocksfar overshadowing her 6 service errors. Emily Kabbes hit .375 with seven kills for the match.
Wichita State, 18-5, 13-1 in the Missouri Valley, ended Illinois States home court winning streak at 18 matches in a row, still the longest in Redbird volleyball history. The Redbirds, 16-8, 8-5 in the Valley, couldnt match Wichita States hitting power as the Shockers hit .333 in game one, .462 in game two and finished the match hitting .370.
Mid-way through the first game, Redbird setter Kelly Rikli became just the third player in Illinois State history and the 16th in Valley history to reach 4,000 career set assists. Rikli set Doornbos for a kill for Illinois States 11th point in game one for No. 4000. With 4,021, Rikli has moved into 15th place on the Valley career list in set assists.
We didnt do what we needed to do tonight, said Kabbes. We werent consistent in games or through the match. Tomorrow night, we have to come out and be more consistent than we were tonight.
WSU coach Chris Lamb was happy about how her team finished the match
Illinois State came back down 0-2 at Northern Iowa and we knew we had to finish, said Lamb. We talked about coming out and finishing in that third game.
Redbird coach Sharon Dingman was disappointed.
We have 13 players and about eight of them played poorly tonight, said Dingman, who made several substitutions starting in game one. Im still confident in this team. Theyve been in this situation (having to come back after losses) before and theyre capable of doing things to turn it around.
The Shockers took an 18-12 lead thanks to five early Redbird hitting errors, but a Doornbos kill, a Wichita State hitting error and a double block by Kabbes and Ashley Grubb sliced that lead in half with Jessie Janik on the service line. Two more hitting errors and ISU was serving for a tie, but Elizabeth Meyers kept WSU ahead with a cross-court kill. ISU served five times to tie, but couldnt convert and WSU finally put back-to-back points together to take a 28-25 lead on a block by Meyers and Sara Younes, whose kill at 29-27 finished the game for WSU.
The Shockers led 9-8 in game two before Knowles started a Redbird run with a kill to tie. An Amber Rogers/Rikli block and a Knowles ace put ISU up 11-9. After a WSU kill, Rogers and Kabbes kills and a Rikli/Kabbes block and ISU led 14-10. WSU caught up with the next four points and, after spotting the Birds a 19-17 lead, converted 13 of the next The Shockers continued to dominate early in game three, piling up a 16-4 lead.
The Redbirds continue their Valley home stand against second-place SMS at 7 p.m. Saturday in Redbird Arena.
