Oct. 20, 2007
Contact: Greg Murphy
GREEN BAY, Wis. - Beth Greulich posted a career-high 21 kills and hit .514 and the Vikings rebounded from a sluggish start to defeat Green Bay, 29-31, 30-27, 30-18, 30-23, in Horizon League action on Saturday afternoon at the Kress Event Center.
"Beth had a monster game for us," head coach Chuck Voss said. "She was outstanding all night and scored some key points for us when we needed them."
Jordan Bateman had her 15th match with at least 20 digs as she finished with 25 digs to run her season total to 466 and break her own school-record of 457 set last season. Alexis Korovich notched her seventh straight double-double with 11 kills and 16 digs, while Mel Snyder handed out 62 assists to go along with 13 digs for her second double-double in as many days.
Liz Fazio (13) and Amy Benz (12) added double-digit kills for the Vikings.
"This was a good bounce back win for us after last night's loss at Milwaukee," Voss said. "We were sluggish early on and really had to battle that, especially in the first game. We made some adjustments during the course of the match and the team responded to them really well."
After falling in game one, the Vikings rebounded to win game two, but it wasn't easy. The Vikings jumped out to a 7-3 lead, only to watch Green Bay respond with five straight points to take an 8-7 lead. From there, it was back and forth as the teams were tied 14 times with the last one coming at 27-27. A kill from Korovich, a block by Benz and Fazio and a Phoenix attack error led to three straight CSU points which tied the match at 1-1.
The intermission didn't slow CSU's momentum as they stormed out of the locker room to a 16-7 lead and held Green Bay to a .026 hitting percentage (12-11-39) to take a 2-1 lead. In contrast, CSU hit a remarkable .519 in game three, as it totaled 15 kills and just one error in 27 attempts.
The first half of game four was evenly matched, but the Vikings used a mini-four-point run with two Korovich kills and another from Fazio to turn a 21-19 lead into a 25-19 advantage to win its third straight game and take the match.
The Vikings held advantages over Green Bay in kills (69-58), aces (6-5), hitting percentage (.265-.116), assists (67-54) and blocks (27-21).
CSU improved to 17-6 overall and 10-2 in league play. The 10 wins are the second most league wins in school-history and trail the record of 11 set in 2005. Green Bay fell to 5-16 this season and 3-9 in the conference.
The Vikings will return to action on Friday night (Oct. 26) when they travel to Loyola for an 8:00 pm EDT match.