Oct. 27, 2006
CHICAGO - Cleveland State avenged a Sept. 30 home loss to UIC, with a 26-30, 30-26, 31-29, 30-27 victory over the Flames on Friday night. With the win, the Vikings improve to 16-6 overall and 6-4 in the Horizon League to move within a game of UIC (14-13, 7-3 HL) and Wright State, who are tied for third place.
"I'm real proud of the way we played tonight," CSU head coach Chuck Voss said. "There were some huge points in the match where we weren't afraid to take big swings. With a young team on the road it would have been very easy to be tentative. This is a big win because it puts us in a great spot to finish in the top half of the league."
With the teams evenly matched in nearly every statistical category, the difference in the contest came down to offensive execution, as the Vikings held a .252 to .212 advantage in hitting percentage.
Freshman Liz Fazio notched a match-high 17 matches to pace CSU, while freshman Beth Greulich equaled her career-high with 14 kills. Senior Danielle Siefker and freshman Alexis Korovich both tallied 11 kills and junior Mel Snyder added eight kills, 48 assists and nine digs. Sophomore Jordan Bateman led the Vikings with 11 digs.
Katarina Nedeljkovic had 16 kills and 13 digs for the Flames, while Amanda Kenney also posted 16 kills and Julie Popp finished with a match-high 16 digs.
Games one and two were exact opposites of each other. The first was well-played, with the Flames out-hitting CSU .343 to .333. The second was an offensive struggle, with the Vikings hitting just .091, but limiting UIC to a .056 mark.
In game three, the Flames served leading 29-28, but a Korovich kill knotted the score. After taking a 30-29 advantage on a UIC hitting error, Snyder put CSU up 2-1 with an ace.
The Vikings used the momentum to jump out early in the fourth game. However, the Flames rallied from a 21-15 deficit to draw within a point at 27-26. Once again though, a Korovich kill kept UIC at bay and kills from Gruelich and Fazio closed out the match.
Cleveland State plays its final road match of the regular season on Saturday (Oct. 28) when the Vikings battle Loyola at 4:00 p.m. CDT.
