Sept. 29, 2007
Notre Dame, Ind. – The University of Notre Dame volleyball was able to notch its first sweep of the 2007 season with a 3-0 (30-19, 30-20, 30-25) win over Seton Hall Saturday at the Joyce Center. The victory bumped Notre Dame’s record to 6-7 overall and 2-1 against BIG EAST Conference teams. Seton Hall fell to 9-7 overall and 0-3 in league play.
Notre Dame had its best offensive output of the season with a .319 attack percentage, and senior Ashley Tarutis (Long Beach, Calif./Los Alamitos) racked up 25 assists while senior Adrianna Stasiuk (Park Ridge, Ill./Maine South) led the Irish with nine kills. Tarutis hit a career-best .857 with six kills on seven attempts.
Seton Hall’s Sarah Osmun led all players with 19 kills, and Brittany Rahrer had 37 dishes.
“We’re really pleased with not only getting the win, but doing it in three games for our first sweep,” said Irish head coach Debbie Brown. “Offensively, this was the best match we’ve had all year. Our serving and passing was solid, and I’m glad we went out and executed the basics today.”
The Irish found themselves down, 3-1, to start the match. Stasiuk and freshman Kellie Sciacca (Monument, Colo./Lewis-Palmer) combined for a block to tie it at 3-3. Sciacca would finish the match with seven kills and seven blocks. Notre Dame took the lead, 5-4, with junior Justine Stremick’s (Langdon, N.D./Langdon Area) solo block at the center of the net. A big swing from Sciacca resulted in a kill that tied the game, 10-10, and the Irish were on the move. A pair of Pirate errors and Stasiuk’s kill down the line made the score 13-10 in favor of the home team. Sciacca had a kill and ace, then Stasiuk added one of each herself. Fesl and Sciacca sandwhiched a block to make it 25-17, and Scaicca delivered a lazer to put ND up by 10 before putting the lock on the gate.
Sitting on a comfortable lead in game two, Stremick recorded a solo block (11-4) and Phillips was there one play later to do the same (12-4). Stremick would add a kill on the slide (20-11), and Stasiuk came back with a liner from the left side of the court one point later. Late in the game, freshman Stephanie Slatt (Burien, Wash./John F. Kennedy) was credited with the first assist of her career after passing the rock Tarutis’ way for the dump.
The Irish had 14.0 blocks through the first two games and added two more in the third, including a solo stop by sophomore Megan Fesl (Arlington Heights, Ill./John Hersey). Fesl finished with six blocks on the afternoon, one shy of matching a personal best. Notre Dame hit .281 in game three, which was actually its lowest mark of the match after knocking .364 (game one) and .310 (game two) in prior stanzas.
–ND–