Sept. 3, 2005
Box Score
Normal, Ill. -
Ashley Grubb tied a Redbird Arena record with 31 digs, and Laura Doornbos had 23 kills to lead Illinois State past Western Illinois 30-23, 20-30, 30-20, 30-17 in the second round of the Barker GMC Classic Saturday at Redbird Arena.
According to Redbird coach Sharon Dingman, it took a lot of fight for her team to turn back the Westerwinds, who fell to 0-2, but put a lot of pressure on Illinois State, 2-1.
"We've got some really good true veterans and this team showed us tremendous perseverance and fight and I think its good that they are like little bulldogs," said Dingman. "They just grab on and keep fighting."
Grubb's mark tied the record set last season by Paige White against Missouri State. Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Laura Dallenbach established the mark with 31 against the Redbirds in 1999. Doornbos had a season-high 23 kills and freshman setter Erin Lindsey had her best marks of the season: 50 set assists, 11 digs, five kills and four blocks.
Doornbos hammered the Westerwinds for eight of the 17 Illinois State kills and Grubb had nine of 21 ISU digs in game one. ISU pulled away from an 18-18 tie with a 6-2 run sparked by back-to-back Emily Kabbes kills. Game two contained 15 Westerwind kills and several unforced Illinois State errors leading to a 30-20 win over the Redbirds. Grubb admitted her team was on its heels in the second game.
"We came out slow and they really took advantage of that," said Grubb. "Once we went to the locker room and talked about it we came out fine because our coaches did a really good job of calling the court."
Kabbes and Doornbos had five kills apiece in game three as the `Birds took a 2-1 lead in the match.
In the first match of the day Western Kentucky came back from a game one loss to beat Kent State 28-30, 30-25, 30-18, 30-28. The win took Western Kentucky into the final match of the tournament undefeated. Kent State fell to 0-3 for the season.
In the first game of day two Kent State had one more kill, one more dig and two more points than Western Kentucky. With game two tied at 16-16, Western Kentucky scored 12 of the next 15 points, including a 6-0 run that featured two service aces by Crystal Towler. The Hilltoppers were at game point leading 29-20 but had to survive a 5-0 KSU run. Kent State battled to a 27-27 tie in game four, but Megan Arganbright of WKU slammed an overpass to propel the `Toppers to the end of the match.
