Nov. 11, 2007
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NOTRE DAME, Ind. – Appropriately, a pair of seniors on the University of Notre Dame volleyball team came up huge on Senior Day during Sunday’s BIG EAST Conference win over No. 17 Louisville.
Ashley Tarutis (Long Beach, Calif./Los Alamitos) and Adrianna Stasiuk (Park Ridge, Ill./Maine South) each notched double-doubles as the Irish (13-12 overall, 9-5 BIG EAST) toppled UofL, 3-1 (30-28, 30-16, 25-30, 30-28), in front of 1,511 fans at the Joyce Center.
Tarutis had a match-high 58 assists – which brought her season total to 1,032 – with 11 digs and Stasiuk converted 11 attacks with 11 digs.
The pair has posted a 90-39 (.698) overall record spanning the past four seasons including a 37-14 (.725) mark at home.
“The win meant a lot to Ashley and Adrianna,” noted Irish head coach Debbie Brown. “It (the win) will be a special memory for them for a long time. It was their last home match, and knowing how hard the team battled and what they had to overcome to earn the win, it thrills me that they will be able to carry that feeling and memory with them forever.”
The win cracked a two-match losing streak to UofL and exacted a bit of revenge for a loss to the Cardinals in the 2006 BIG EAST Championship final. Louisville’s setback dropped its record to 20-5 overall and blemished what was previously an undefeated league mark, heading home with a 13-1 conference record.
“It was a great win for the team and for the program,” Brown said after the match. “I think that the progress we’ve made over the last two weeks has gotten our confidence at the place it should be as we head into the conference tournament.
“We went in and executed our game plan very well, and the heart and character of this team really showed today. We had every reason in the world to win this match, and I’m proud of the team for earning this great win against a Top 25 program.”
Notre Dame extended a season-high four-match winning streak and a sixth straight win on its home floor. The squad hopes to carry the momentum into this season’s BIG EAST postseason tournament, set to be hosted by Marquette from Nov. 16-18. The Irish earned the No. 4 seed in the tournament and will face fifth-seeded Cincinnati on Friday (Nov. 16) at 11 a.m. (ET). Notre Dame won the regular-season meeting with the Bearcats, handing them a 3-1 loss on Nov. 9.
Tarutis captained the offense to a .267 hitting mark for the match and aided three players to impressive averages. Sophomore Megan Fesl (Arlington Heights, Ill./John Hersey) racked up a match-high 21 kills for a .341 average and junior Justine Stremick (Langdon, N.D./Langdon Area) finished with a .333 average and nine kills while Louisville’s Lecia Brown for a match-best nine blocks.
Sophomore Serinity Phillips (Valley Center, Calif./Valley Center) had 17 kills, and freshman Kellie Sciacca (Monument, Colo./Lewis-Palmer) had 16 with a .433 clip. Getting under 10 digs was sophomore Jamel Nicholas (Gibsonia, Pa./Pine-Richland).
Stremick had a solo block (5-5) which was followed by two Stasiuk kills from the left side to give Notre Dame an 8-5 lead in game one. Sciacca came through with an ace (9-5), and Tarutis tossed a quick set to Stremick for a kill (12-6) after Phillips laid down a pair of kill. Fesl delivered a strike to put the Irish ahead by eight, 18-10, when UofL put together a pair of rallies to cut the score to 21-19.
Stasiuk went through the block (23-21) and Fesl had a tip fall into enemy territory (24-22) to stay up by a deuce. Louisville came right back and tied things at 27-27 with Jana Matiasovska’s monster kill. Matiasovska led UofL with 16 kills on 32 swings in the match, but was denied by Stremick and sophomore Tara Enzweiler (Raleigh, N.C./Cardinal Gibbons) on an attack that was blocked by the pair on game point.
Sciacca had six kills to start the match and helped her team to a .288 mark, which was bested by Louisville’s .333 percentage. Stremick was 5-of-7 without a hitting error and Tarutis assisted on 18 of the 22 Irish kills in the frame.
Tarutis enjoyed an ace early in game two to lift the Irish up by a pair, 3-1. Stremick had a kill on the slide (6-6) when Louisville broke away with a brief rally. Notre Dame came back within one, 10-11, after Sciacca smacked a kill off the head of a Cardinal defender, and would knot things up (11-11) with Fesl’s slam from the left side of the court. UofL was called for a setting error (12-11) then Sciacca timed her jump perfectly with Phillips for a block (13-11). Coming out of a timeout, Brown muscled a kill to bring Louisville within seven (23-16). But it would be the last score that UofL would tally in the game. Fesl had three more kills before the Irish finished the stanza with a 7-0 run.
Stasiuk caught the Cardinal defense with its feet in cement with a laser to tie game three at 3-3, which the second of six tied scores in the frame. The last would come at 8-8 on a Fesl kill, then Louisville extended its lead to six points on several occasions before pulling out the win by five scores.
Fesl had game-high seven kills on 10 attempts in the game for the Irish. But it was the play of Louisville’s Brown, the nation’s leader in blocks-per-game, who was the difference maker the Cardinal defense in holding the Irish to their lowest hitting clip of the match (.234).
Stremick and Stasiuk got Notre Dame on the board with a double block after giving up the first two points of game four to the Cards. Sciacca had an attempt clip the net and hit paydirt for a score, and Stasiuk shot a shallow attack crosscourt to bring Notre Dame within a lone point (7-8). The Irish trailed by as many as four (7-11) and wound up down by three (9-12) with Stremick’s glider. Then Stasiuk had three jump serves fall off the kitchen table for aces to tie the game and swing momentum back into the hands of the Irish. Fesl gave Notre Dame the lead (14-13) and steered a kill through the Louisville double block for a three-point advantage (16-13).
Ahead 26-22, Louisville took the next two scores when Fesl put the Irish up by a trey. Phillips made the score 28-25 in favor of the home squad and Louisville once again rattled off two unanswered points. Sciacca’s crosser set up game point, which was redeemed for the win when Phillips connected successfully on a Tarutis dish.
–ND–