Oct. 29, 2010
Contact: Greg Murphy
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio - Cleveland State won its 19th match of the season with a 3-0 sweep of Youngstown State in Horizon League action on Friday night.
The win improved the Vikings to 19-4 overall and 9-3 in league play, while the Penguins slipped to 2-23 overall and 0-12 in league play.
Match scores were 25-15, 25-13, 25-18.
"This was a nice win for us," head coach Chuck Voss said. "I thought we did a nice job of staying in system and played well offensively for most of the match. We are coming down the stretch heading into the league tournament and have to continue to play with the intensity and confidence that we showed tonight."
Kara Koch led the Vikings with 17 kills and six digs, while Amy Benz was the only other CSU player to record double-digit kills with 13. Jackie Dabbelt finished with eight.
Jordan Goad handed out 34 assists, helping lead the Vikings to a .320 (48-16-100) attack percentage for the match, while Amy Grabiec made a match-best 12 digs.
The Vikings fell behind 9-5 in the first set before scoring the next five points to take a 10-9 lead. From there, CSU scored seven of the next nine points to assume a 17-11 lead on a Penguin attack error as the lead swelled to as many as 10 points.
CSU scored the first four points of set two as the Vikings did not trail the entire set. The Penguins did pull within two points on several occasions, the final coming at 11-9 on a kill from Tasha Reid. However, Megan Barhorst followed with a kill that ignited a 6-0 run, giving the Vikings a 17-9 lead en route to a 2-0 lead.
The Vikings once again started out quickly in the third set, taking an 11-4 lead as Koch had four kills early in the set. YSU was able to pull within three points at 18-15, but back-to-back kills by Koch and Dabbelt and a Penguin attack error extended the CSU lead to 21-15 as CSU earned its 10th sweep of the season.
The Vikings held YSU to a .036 attack percentage, finishing with seven blocks.
CSU will be back in action on Friday night when the Vikings host Loyola at 7:00 p.m. in Woodling Gym.
