Nov. 4, 2005
CLEVELAND - Cleveland State remained just a half-game behind league-leading UW-Milwaukee with a 30-21, 30-25, 28-30, 30-15 victory over UW-Green Bay on Friday night in Woodling Gymnasium. The Vikings and Panthers will square off at 4:00 p.m. on Saturday with the winner gaining the upper hand in the race for the regular season championship with just one week left to play.
"Tomorrow should be a lot of fun," CSU head coach Chuck Voss said. "I'm looking forward to a great match against a very good team. We're going to have to be at the top of our game to beat them (UW-Milwaukee)."
CSU extended its school records for consecutive Horizon League victories (seven) and total conference wins (nine) while improving to 17-7 overall on the year and 9-2 in the league. UW-Green Bay drops to 13-13 overall and 5-7 in the league.
The Vikings were nearly unstoppable offensively, hitting .302 (62-17-149) while limiting the Phoenix to a .107 hitting percentage (60-41-177). The difference was due largely in part to CSU's season-high 17 blocks to just five for UW-Green Bay.
Jenna Maddocks led the Vikings with 15 kills and eight digs, while Emily Clark nearly recorded her first career triple-double with 13 kills, 13 digs and a career-high eight blocks. Nickole Kennedy tallied 12 kills and five blocks and Danielle Siefker added nine kills and a season-high 11 blocks. Mel Snyder finished with 55 assists, seven digs and nine kills. Alisa Hatcher notched a team-best 20 digs, in the process becoming the ninth player in school history with 1,000 career digs.
"The fourth game was about as good as we can play -- it was great to see us respond after the letdown in the third game," Voss noted. "We passed well tonight and Mel [Snyder] ran a great offense. When we're getting good swings we're hard to stop."
Jackie Rosen and Jill Smits led the Phoenix offensively with 17 and 13 kills, respectively. Sarah Rauen recorded a team-high 20 digs.
