Career Efforts Pace IPFW Over DePaul

Saturday, September 10

Cleveland, Ohio

4:30 PM

Purdue Fort Wayne

5-4

DePaul

3-7

IPFW

DePaul

Alli Hook had a career-high 17 kills for IPFW in its win over DePaul

9/10/2011 4:54:00 PM | Women's Volleyball

Box Score

BOX SCORE

Cleveland, OH - Behind a slew of career-best stat lines, the IPFW women's volleyball team (5-4) toppled the DePaul Blue Demons (3-7) of the Big East Conference in five sets on Saturday afternoon (20-25, 25-21, 25-22, 20-25, 15-13) in the final match for each squad in the Cleveland State Tournament.

Highlighting the career-best list was senior Alli Hook, who had a career-high 17 kills for a match-high, while Jessie Manwaring also broke her own career best with 15 kills. Emily Spencer reached double-figure kills for the ninth consecutive match with 15, picking up her seventh double-double on the season with 10 digs.

Junior libero Tessa McGill dug up a match-high 32 kill attempts, the sixth best five-set total in school history, as the total also pushes her past former IPFW standout Lindi Bankowski (2001-04) into 10th in career digs, now with 1,093 (Bankowski had 1,085). Megan Steenhuysen finished with a season-high 16 digs, while dishing out a career-best 56 assists.

The Mastodons jumped ahead and dominated early in the opening set, using a 5-0 run to push ahead to an 8-2 lead, and the advantage remained at five at 15-10 before the Blue Demons closed out the opening set with a 15-5 run, including scoring the final six points to earn a 25-20 first set victory.

The second set was a mirror-image of the first set, with DePaul jumping out to an early four-point, 7-3 lead, and leading by four as late as 11-7, before the Mastodons fought back, using runs of 4-0 and 5-0 to flip the advantage on the side of IPFW. The 'Dons took the lead for good during the 5-0 run, and then followed with a 4-0 run before holding on for a 25-21 second set win.

DePaul led 1-0, but would not lead again in the third set as IPFW scored four straight points on a Spencer kill, a Steenhuysen ace, and a pair of Hook kills. The IPFW lead grew to as many as four, before the Blue Demons fought back to tie the match at 18 and 21; however, a 5-1 run to end the set eliminated any doubt in the 25-22 IPFW win.

The fourth set added six tie scores, the latest coming at 20-20; however, the Blue Demons would blaze through the final six points of the set, sending the contest into a fifth and deciding set with a 25-20 fourth-set score.

The back-and-forth continued into the fifth set, as DePaul led by two at 7-5 before IPFW ran off seven of the next eight points to lead by three at 11-8. The Blue Demons fought back and climbed to within one point three times down the stretch, but could not overcome the early IPFW lead as Hook ended the contest with her 17th kill of the match.

IPFW totaled 11 service aces in the match, three from Kendall Wienkes and two each off of serves from Steenhuysen, Jen Milligan, and McGill. The 11 are the 12th most in a five-set match in program history.

Amy Lanski had a team-best 15 kills in a non-starting role for the Blue Demons, as Molly Creek and Rachel Aumann also had double-figure kills for the balanced DePaul attack.

The Mastodons stay on the road for its next game, a non-conference meeting with the Kent State Golden Flashes on Thursday, September 15, before hosting its first match of the year in the remodeled Hilliard Gates Sports Center on September 17 in the Summit League opener against Oakland.

~Dons~