Oct. 16, 2009
Contact: Greg Murphy
FAIRBORN, Ohio - Cleveland State ran its win streak to nine straight with a 3-0 sweep over Wright State on Friday night in Horizon League volleyball action.
Match scores were 25-20, 25-21, 26-24.
The win improves the Vikings to 20-5, giving CSU its 11th 20-win season in school history, including two of the last three. CSU also maintained a hold of first place in the league at 8-1. Valparaiso entered today's play at 7-1 and is playing at Youngstown State tonight.
Liz Fazio once again paced the Viking offense with 19 kills and 10 digs for her team-leading 10th double-double of the season. Amy Benz added 10 kills and six blocks, while Kara Koch added six kills.
Jordan Goad recorded 41 assists and four digs, while Amy Grabiec made 19 digs.
"This was a big win for us to start off the second round of league play," head coach Chuck Voss said. "I thought we did some good things on both offense and defense, but we know that we still have some things to work on if we want to attain all of our goals.
"Liz was great for us tonight," Voss continued. "She has been in a groove over the last few weeks and is attacking the ball hard. But her defensive play in the backrow has been even more impressive this season."
The first set was close to start with CSU holding an 11-9 lead. However, the Vikings used a pair of kills from Fazio and a WSU attack error to extend the lead to 14-9. The Raiders would cut the lead to two points on a few occasions, but would get no closer the rest of the set.
CSU raced out to a 10-5 lead in the second set, highlighted by a pair of aces from Grabiec and one from Marie Frease. A 5-2 run by WSU brought the Raiders back to within 12-10. The Raiders would eventually cut the lead to one point (18-17), but a mini 3-1 run by CSU pushed its lead back to three (21-18), extending the Vikings lead to 2-0.
The Vikings once again struck quickly in the third set, taking a 4-1 lead behind kills from Benz, Fazio and Frease and a Goad service ace.
However, WSU rallied back with five straight points to take a 6-4 lead and force a CSU timeout. The Raiders pushed the lead to 13-9, but the Vikings used a 5-0 run to take a 14-13 lead, forcing a WSU timeout.
WSU responded to take a 20-17 lead, but once again, the Vikings did not quit as CSU rebounded to knot the set at 21-21 with a 4-1 run. The teams traded points until a Fazio kill and Raider attack error gave CSU the sweep.
The Vikings hit .255 for the match, holding WSU to a .171 percentage, using 13.5 total blocks and 58 digs on the defensive end.
CSU will be out of action until next Friday (Oct. 23) when the Vikings host Valparaiso at 7:00 p.m. in Woodling Gym.
