Volleyball Finishes Regular Season on a High Note with Wins Over Millsaps and Hanover
BOX 1 | BOX 2
St. Louis, Mo., October 30, 2010 – The No. 1 Washington University in St. Louis volleyball team defeated Millsaps College, 3-1 (25-17, 25-12, 23-25, 25-13) and Hanover College, 3-0 (25-21, 25-19, 25-5) on Saturday, Oct. 30, at the Washington University Field House in St. Louis, Mo., to finish first at the 2010 Washington University Invitational Tournament.
Washington University had three student-athletes selected to the Washington University Invitational All-Tournament Team: sophomore libero Kelly Pang, junior middle hitter Lauren Budde and sophomore outside hitter Drew Hargrave.
Pang was tremendous on defense throughout the weekend, finishing the four matches with 80 digs, an average of 6.67 per set. Budde and Hargrave were dominant in the front row, finishing with 48 and 47 kills apiece through four matches. Budde also tallied 17 total blocks, 1.31 per set, and 32 digs, while Hargrave hit a team-high .443 with eight blocks.
The Washington University Invitational was the final warm-up for the Bears before the 2010 University Athletic Association (UAA) Championship, to be hosted Friday-Saturday, Nov. 5-6, on the campus of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.
Washington University finished UAA round robin play with a 5-2 record, earning the No. 3 seed in the conference championship. The tournament will feature two pools of round robin play, with the winner of each pool advancing to play for the conference championship.
The Bears open UAA play on Friday with matches against Carnegie Mellon University and Brandeis University, before facing No. 15 New York University on Saturday, Nov. 6. New York was one of two teams to beat Washington U. during round robin play two weeks ago in Waltham, Mass.
The Bears hit better than .400 as a team in all three of the sets they won against Millsaps, including a blistering .500 with 15 kills to just one error in the 13-point second set win. Budde and freshman outside Meghan Byrne recorded 16 kills apiece in the win, with Byrne attacking at a team-best clip of .452.
Sophomore setter Marilee Fisher racked up 58 assists in just four sets, averaging 14.5 per set to finish four shy of her career-high of 62 assists. Hargrave also had double-digit kills with 12 and Pang notched 17 digs.
The Bears’ offense did not miss a beat in the tournament championship match against Hanover, as Washington U. hit .327 as a team in the three-set win that culminated with a 25-5 third-set victory where the team combined to hit .560.
Hargrave set a new career-high with 18 kills in the win over Hanover, hitting an incredible .556, also tallying seven digs and a couple of block assists. Byrne was just as unstoppable on the attack, hitting .579 with 13 kills, eight of which came in the big third-set win. She also filled up the stat sheet, finishing with four aces, four digs and two blocks.