Sept. 11, 2010
DENVER – The Notre Dame volleyball team received seven aces from seven different players Saturday at Hamilton Gymnasium against Jacksonville State and parlayed that momentum into a 3-1 (18-25, 25-15, 25-11, 25-19) comeback win. The Irish won their second straight match at Denver’s Pioneer Classic to improve to 6-2 on the season.
Junior Kristen Dealy was one of four Irish players to record kills on the day, leading the team with 12. Freshman Andrea McHugh and junior Hilary Eppink each had 11 and senior Kellie Sciacca added nine. Sciacca also had a match-high nine blocks – two solo – with freshman setter Sammie Brown tacking on seven. Notre Dame totaled 12.0 blocks.
Jacksonville State (4-5) hit .050 for the match and swung below .000 in the second and third sets. Caitlin Vorbeck stroked 15 kills to lead the Gamecocks.
Brown assisted on 36 of Notre Dame’s 41 kills behind a .257 hitting pct., highlighted by a .318 clip in the second set.
Five of Sciacca’s kills came in the first frame with Notre Dame staring at a 5-1 deficit. The Irish rallied to tie the score at 11-11 when the Gamecocks took off for the win. Jacksonville State outplayed Notre Dame down the stretch and received kills from six different players to lengthen its final lead to seven points.
McHugh blasted four kills on six swings in the second to tie the overall score at 1-1 heading into intermission. Jacksonville State hit a dismal -.143 in the second and Notre Dame took its first 10-point lead on Eppink’s ace at 16-6 after Sciacca had a hand on three straight blocks. Sciacca had eight kills and five blocks at the break.
Sophomore Christina Theofilos served for the Irish to open the third with an ace and two Dealy kills. Brown had two late blocks and junior Angela Puente added an ace to make it 23-10.
Four Irish players had kills through three sets, paced by nine from Dealy and eight from Sciacca, Eppink and McHugh. Sciacca and Eppink had identical lines with a .538 average on 13 swings and one error apiece.
Notre Dame scored the first three in the fourth stanza and never trailed despite not recording a block and even hit three (10) fewer kills than the Gamecocks (13).
The Pioneer Classic ends at 1:00 p.m. (MT) when the Irish battle host Denver. Live stats and video will be available at UND.com.
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