University of Louisville
Valparaiso
Volleyball Falls to Valparaiso
September 05, 2008 | Women's Volleyball
Sept. 5, 2008
Freshman outside hitter Anastasia Artemeva's 14 kills and an ace were not enough as Louisville fell 3-2 to Valparaiso in the second match of the Indiana adidas Classic Friday night in Assembly Hall in Bloomington.
The Cardinals suffered their first lost and post a 2-1 record with the 25-23, 25-22, 19-25, 15-25 , 15-9 loss. Valparaiso improves to 4-1 and knocks off its second BIG EAST opponent of the week, with an upset last Sunday against Notre Dame in South Bend.
"I think our lack of experience and with two seniors out with injuries got us off to a slow start," said Leonid Yelin. "Our serve receive started out shaky and it took two games to adjust. We had chances in the fifth game, being up 3-1 but we made some unforced errors and we didn't overcome them."
U of L outblocked the Crusaders 16-2 but VU had 68 kills to U of L's 50 and both teams combined for 16 service errors. Lecia Brown had 10 kills and seven blocks with Tatyana Kolesnikova adding 10 kills and four blocks for the Cards. Freshman Gwen Rucker had a match-high eight blocks. VU was led by Angie Porche's 23 kills and 10 digs.
"I was very pleased at the great job that Gwen Rucker did on the block," said Yelin. "Valpo runs a quick offense and Gwen read it well and got her hands on a lot of their attacks."
Louisville's chilly hitting .074 did not serve the Cardinals well as the Crusaders took the first set 25-23 and ten ties and four lead changes. VU scored four of the last five points to take the set getting the set winner from Angie Porche who had five kills and three digs in the set.
The second set was a series of surges by each team with Louisville scoring four straight to take the lead at 14-13. VU countered with four straight of its own to retake the lead and then never trailed again. Five straight Crusaders points took VU to 23-17 but then U of L ran off four straight to come within two at 23-21. Two straight kills by Angie Porche gave VU the win and a 2-0 lead going into the break.
U of L recovered in the third set and led the whole way after taking a 4-3 lead. The Cardinal blocking factored into the 25-19 win. U of L stretched its lead by as many as eight at 21-13 and then held off a surging VU squad. The Crusaders cut the margin to five at 23-18 but could not close. U of L was led by four kills and three blocks by Lecia Brown. The Cardinal hitting percentage warmed to .250 while VU's cooled to .163. Porche continued to be a problem for the U of L defense, tallying seven kills in the third set alone.
The Cardinals wrested the momentum away from the Crusaders in the fourth set using a 10-2 run to spread their lead from 14-13 to 24-15. A Lecia Brown kill sealed the 25-15 win and forced the fifth game. U of L hit a torrid .500 to VU's .083 led by Anastasia Artemeva's four kills.
The Crusaders had a 5-0 run in the final set to build a lead of 9-4 and then held on to for the 15-9 win.
"We had to play so many freshmen but the mental edge they got here will pay off later in the season," said Yelin.
