University of Louisville
VILLANOVA
Volleyball Beats Villanova 3-1
October 11, 2008 | Women's Volleyball
Oct. 11, 2008
Tatyana Kolesnikova had 16 kills and five blocks to lead the University of Louisville to a 3-1 win over Villanova in BIG EAST volleyball action Saturday afternoon in Cardinal Arena.
Louisville boosted its conference mark to 3-2 and 7-9 overall with the 20-25, 25-14, 25-15, 30-28 win. Villanova evens its conference mark at 2-2 and stands at 11-8 overall. U of L hit .350 to VU's .128 and outblocked the Wildcats 14-2. Jana Matiasovska added 11 kills and one block with Lecia Brown hitting .692 with nine kills on 13 swings and now errors. She had a match high seven blocks. Morgan Petkovich led the Wildcats wit h14 kills and Maggie Mergen added 13. Both teams struggled at the service line with 13 service errors apiece.
"All of our close matches have paid off as we buckled down and won this match when it could have gone the other way easily," said U of L coach Leonid Yelin. "Our blocking came alive and that made a big difference."
Outhitting Villanova .250 to .214, the Cardinals were plagued by momentum killers in the first set and were aced four times with four service errors of their own. The game was tied at 16 before the Wildcats went on a 9-4 run to take the first set 25-20.
The Wildcats' hitting deserted them in the second set as they had nine kills and 12 errors. Meanwhile on the other side of the net, U of L's hitting hand heated up to .409 led by four kills by Tatyana Kolesnikova and four blocks by Renee Tomko. VU fell behind 10-4 early on and could not overcome the deficit and fell 25-14.
In the third set, VU once again fell behind early at 14-6 but closed the gap to four at 16-12. The Cardinals had a string of four straight to retake set momentum and then used a 5-1 down the stretch to win 25-15. Justine Landi had five kills to pace the Cardinals in that set.
Villanova led nearly the whole fourth set until the Cardinals roared back, tying at 23 and then winning 30-28 for the match. U of L hit .281 in the set led by Kolesnikova's four kills and Brown's four kills and a block.
