No. 3 Volleyball Claims Halloween Classic Team Championship
BOX 1 | BOX 2
St. Louis, Mo., October 29, 2011 — The No. 3 ranked Washington University in St. Louis volleyball team closed out regular season play with a pair of 3-0 victories over Hanover College and Mount St. Joseph College on Saturday afternoon at the Halloween Classic in St. Louis, Mo.
Sophomore Meghan Byrne had a 16 season-high kills and hit .438 in the 25-18, 25-19, 25-18 victory over Hanover. Senior Lauren Budde added 13 kills and nine digs as Washington U. hit .311 as a team.
Byrne and Budde each had five kills in the set one victory. An overpass by Hanover resulted in a kill by Budde to make it 19-13, and then back-to-back kills by junior Drew Hargrave gave the Bears the set one victory. Washington U. hit a sizzling .467 (18-4-30) in the set two victory led by seven kills by Byrne. The Bears trailed 11-9 early in the second set, but a 14-4 run pushed the advantage to 23-15 following a kill by sophomore Kaia Schwartz.
The third set was all Washington U., as Budde had five kills and Byrne added four. Budde had a stretch of three-straight kills, which pushed the Bears advantage to 23-17, and then recorded her 13th kill on the final point of the match. Abby Merritt had a team-high nine kills and 14 digs for Hanover, which had its six-match winning streak snapped.
Budde had the hot hand in the 25-15, 25-16, 25-11 victory over Mount St. Joseph in the final match of the tournament. Budde had a match-high 13 kills and hit .500 (13-1-24) in the win. Byrne (eight kills), Schwartz (eight kills) and senior Kristen Thomas (seven kills) also provide an offensive spark for Washington U.
The Bears jumped out in front of the Lions 12-6 after hitting .714 (5-0-7) midway through the first set. Three-straight kills by Budde got the lead to 21-9, and then an ace by Byrne closed the first set out.
A pair of aces by sophomore Tonya Marvi got Washington U. out to an early 9-6 in set two. Thomas came off the bench and added three-straight kills to push the advantage to 13-6. Thomas recorded back-to-back kills to push the lead to 24-15, and then sophomore Emily Tulloch’s first kill of the match made it 25-16. The Bears hit .516 (18-2-31) in set two.
The Bears lead from start to finish in set three, and hit .412 (17-3-34) in the final set. Budde had five kills and Schwartz added four in the third set. Budde ended the match with an ace as WUSTL ended the regular season with a perfect 22-0 home record.
Senior Tricia Brandt, Byrne and Schwartz were named to the All-Tournament Team, along with Courtney Reinhold (Eastern), Mariah Horning (Eastern) and Jaclyn Stenger (Mount St. Joseph). Budde recorded a team-best 48 kills and hit .363, while Byrne had 41 kills and hit a team-best .412. Junior Marilee Fisher recorded 143 assists (11.92/set) in the four victories and directed the offense, which hit .352 as a team. Junior Kelly Pang led the defensive effort with a tournament-best 70 digs (5.83/set).
Washington University (29-1) returns to action on Friday-Saturday, Nov. 4-5, at the 2011 University Athletic Association (UAA) Championship held at New York University. The Bears open up play on Friday at Noon (ET) in the first round against Carnegie Mellon University. Washington U. defeated Carnegie Mellon 3-0 on Oct. 1 in the team’s only meeting.