Nov. 21, 2008
Contact: Greg Murphy
CLEVELAND, Ohio - Sixth-seeded Cleveland State began defense of its Horizon League Championship with a 3-0 sweep of third-seeded Wright State in the fourth and final quarterfinal match of the day on Friday night in Woodling Gym.
Match scores were 25-18, 25-17, 29-27, as the Vikings improved to 9-18. WSU concludes its season with a 15-16 mark.
The Vikings will play second-seeded Valparaiso, a 3-1 winner over seventh-seeded Green Bay, in Saturday's (Nov. 22) second semifinal at 3:00 p.m. in Woodling Gym.
Top-seeded Milwaukee and fifth-seeded Butler will play in the first semifinal at 12:30 p.m. Milwaukee swept eighth-seeded UIC, while Butler topped fourth-seeded Loyola in four sets.
"This was a great way for us to start the league tournament," head coach Chuck Voss said. "I thought we were very solid on defense and we really did a nice job of attacking. We got great efforts from all of our hitters and Jordan (Goad) did a tremendous job of spreading the ball around.
"I thought we did a great job of staying tough mentally, especially in the third set. We were able to keep our focus and win a lot of key points in each set."
With the first set tied at 10-10, CSU scored four straight points, including a pair of kills by Jenni Ramminger, to take a 14-10 lead. CSU pushed the lead to 21-14 on a WSU attack error in earning the win.
Set two was all CSU as the Vikings never trailed with the match being tied just two times. The final tie came when a Ramminger attack error knotted the score at 4-4. The Raiders were able to hang around and trailed by just two points (14-12) after a CSU attack error.
However, a Kayla Lefeld kill gave the service back to CSU and Jordan Bateman served the Vikings to six straight points to conclude a 7-0 run which gave the Vikings a 21-12 lead. Beth Greulich had four straight kills during the run after a Bateman ace.
The third set was close throughout, featuring 10 ties and two lead changes. The Raiders got off to their best start of the match, taking a 9-5 lead on a CSU attack error. However, the Vikings scored the nexy four points to tie the set at 9-9.
WSU reclaimed a three point lead (17-14) on a Jessica Woods kill, but the Vikings remained resilient, scoring the next six points, including a pair of kills by Liz Fazio to take a 20-17 lead.
CSU still led by three (23-20), but this time, it was the Raiders who battled back, scoring three consecutive points to knot the set at 23-23. A Lefeld kill stopped the run and gave the Vikings match point, but Lizzy Gunn made sure that didn't happen with a kill to tie the set at 24-24.
The teams traded the next six points before back-to-back kills gave CSU the win.
Greulich led the Vikings with 10 kills, while Amy Benz, Ramminger and Liz Fazio had nine each and Lefeld finished with eight. Goad recorded a double-double with 39 assists and 14 digs to go along with five kills, while Jordan Bateman had a match-best 20 digs, while Benz chipped in eight blocks.
Becca Awaa led the Raiders with nine kills. Michelle Hammond had 33 assists and 10 digs, while Lexi Leonhard had a team-high 18 digs.
CSU and WSU had split their two games in the regular season with each team winning in five sets on their own home courts.
