University of Louisville
vs Wake Forest<BR>Wright State Tournament
Volleyball Escapes Demon Deacons 3-2
September 17, 2004 | Women's Volleyball
Sept. 17, 2004
DAYTON, Ohio -- Lena Ustymenko had 21 kills to lead U of L to a 3-2 win over Wake Forest at the Wright State Raider Challenge.
The No. 17 ranked Cardinals pushed their record to 6-1 with the 30-19, 30-25, 20-30, 30-32, 18-16 win. Wake Forest moves to 5-2.
Serving miscues plagued both teams with Louisville recording 12 service errors and WFU adding 10. Although both teams had spells of ice hitting Wake hit .210 as a team to U of L's .263 .
"We were down 14-12 in the final game with Wake Forest gunning for us,: said Leonid Yelin. "I hope we learned some valuable lessons from this and managed to salvage a win.. I give Wake Forest a lot of credit for pushing us out of our game."
Louisville used a 10-2 run late in the first game for the 30-18 win over the Demon Deacons. U of L had a hot hand hitting, converting 15 kills on 28 swings for .321. Wake Forest hit .107. Bing Sun had six of her 18 kills in the first set.
The Cardinals did not take the lead until 19-18 in the second game and then traded points with Wake Forest. A four point run put U of L up 26-21 and the Cardinals finished with three straight to take the game. U of L outhit Wake Forest .286 to .094.
Wake Forest used a 15-3 run in the third game to go up 20-12 and build what was an insurmountable lead. The Cardinals hitting cooled to .188 to Wake's .375. WFU's Morgan Havig had four kills to lead the Deacons in the set.
Wake Forest's momentum carried over into the third game when they popped out to a 10-5 lead and forced a U of L time-out. The Cardinals pecked away at the WFU lead and tied at 17. The Cardinals took their first lead at 19-18 on a Sun kill but it was short-lived as WFU went on a 5-1 lead to go up 23-20 and forcing Yelin to utilize his last time-outs. The Cardinals responded by rebounding to a 27-27 tie and a Wake Forest time-out. The teams continued to trade points and then down 30-29, Wake Forest put together three straight points to win.
In the final set, Wake Forest popped out to a 6-2 lead but the Cardinals battled back to a tie at nine. The opponents traded points before WFU got to game and match point at 14-13. U of L evened the score at 14 and Baker called a time-out to regroup. The teams tied again at 15 and a kill by Bing Sun took the Cardinals to game and match point. Wake tied again at 16 on a Valerie Rydberg kill. A pair of misses by WFU tipped the game to the Cardinals.
Four other Cardinals joined Ustymenko in double digit kills with Sun's 18 and Stephanie Marsh, Svetlana Dukule and Anastasia Yartseva each adding10. Setter Jennifer Craven had 29 assists and seven digs. Wake Forest was led by a trio of hitters, Morgan Havig, Rydberg and Kim Stern each adding 14.
U of L has a pair of matches tomorrow with a intrastate matchup against Morehead State at 10 a.m. The Cardinals will face host Wright State at 2:30.
