Sept. 1, 2009
Box Score
CHICAGO - Illinois State (3-1) showed toughness and determination to outlast Loyola-Chicago (1-3) in its first five-set match of the year, 3-2 (25-20, 22-25, 22-25, 25-20, 15-10). The Redbirds were down 2-1 after three sets, but came back to beat the Ramblers in a match that featured 30 ties and 15 lead changes.
"This was a great team effort," said head coach Melissa Myers. "A lot of people made contributions throughout the match to earn this win. It was great to see the team deal with the adversity of being down 2-1, especially on the road. Mallory Leggett had five kills and Laura Wakefield had eight digs in the last set. Those are tremendous efforts in a fifth set; some players don't put up those numbers in a match."
Leggett led ISU with a season-high 18 kills and three service aces. Sophomore Tabitha Visk tied her career-high with 15 kills, her four-straight match in double-figures. Junior Hailey Kelley also had a career-high 11 kills.
Sophomore Kristin Stauter set a career-high with 35 set-assists and had two kills on two attack attempts. Wakefield led the Redbirds with a career-best 23 digs and senior Kasey Mollerus added 20.
The first set was tight, with six ties through the first 11 points for each team. ISU built a three-point lead with back-to-back blocks and the lead grew to 19-14 with a pair of Leggett kills. Loyola scored three right after a timeout, but the Redbirds maintained the lead and won the set. Leggett and Visk combined for nine of the Redbirds' 11 kills.
Loyola broke out to a 6-1 lead in the second set and then doubled up the Redbirds at 14-7 and 16-8. ISU scored consecutive points for the first time with three-straight to make the score 18-13, highlight by a pair of aces from freshman Jenny Menendez. The Redbirds later went on a 5-1 run to pull within two, 23-21. A service error gave the Ramblers a chance at set point, but junior Katie Culbertson and freshman Angela Rego combined for a block that kept the Redbirds within two. Another service error ended the set in favor of the Ramblers.
The third set was just was tightly-contested as the second, with 11 ties and five lead changes. The Redbirds trailed early on, but never by more than two points. They took their first lead, 11-10, and maintained a one-point edge until the set was tied at 18. Loyola went back on top at that point, but the Redbirds tied the score twice more. A pivotal point in the set came when it appeared that Pratapas had a kill to tie the score at 22, but she was called for an illegal back-row attack, making the score 23-21 in favor of Loyola. The Ramblers finished off the set to take a 2-1 lead in the match.
In the fourth set, each time a team took a two-point lead, errors would bring the other team right back for a tie. After that occurred four times, Loyola managed to extend its lead, 15-12. Through the first six kills for each team, Illinois State had seven errors, Loyola had just one.
The Redbirds came right back with a 9-1 run to take the largest lead of the set, 21-16. They rattled off six-straight points to take the lead, the last five coming on kills. Loyola managed a 4-1 run to pull within two points, but ISU scored the last three to force a decisive fifth set. Kelley had four kills in the set, all during the late Redbird run.
Four-straight points in the fifth set put ISU up 4-2, forcing a Loyola timeout. After the Ramblers tied it at six, another four-straight Redbird points put them in double-digits first. After missing on their first match point, Leggett ended a long rally with a kill to claim the set and the match. Leggett had five of ISU's 10 kills in the fifth set and Wakefield had eight of the 15 digs.
Illinois State travels to the Holiday Inn West Bronco Invitational this weekend in Kalamazoo. Mich. The Redbirds take on Dayton Friday at 4 p.m.
