Volleyball Outlasts Ohio 3-2

Sunday, August 29

CARDINAL ARENA

2:00 PM

University of Louisville

OHIO

August 29, 2010 | Women's Volleyball

Aug. 29, 2010

Box Score |  Photo Gallery 

Louisville, Ky.- The Cardinal's second match in the Louisville Invitational against Ohio University was anything but a walk in the park. This highly competitive match went down to the wire with the Cards overcoming the Bobcat's pressure in five sets 3-2 (23-25, 25-22, 25-22, 16-25, 15-9) to improve their record to 2-0.

Lola Arslanbekova, Anastasia Artemeva, and Gwen Rucker led the Cards with 12 kills each. Freshman Emily Juhl had another impressive outing tallying 11 kills with her fellow freshman, Taylor Brauneis, leading the team with 36 assists.

"The win was a true team effort," said U of L coach Leonid Yelin. "Everybody helped each other out. The setters helped each other. The hitters picked each other up and the passing helped us get our offense going. We didn't panic which is something you might expect from a young team. The home crowd helped our energy up."

The Cards trailed the Bobcats 7-3 early in the first set. U of L couldn't prevent Ohio from making a six-point run to add their deficit to nine points. Then the Cards made a run to make the match competitive by taking 16 of 22 points and took the lead 20-19. However, the U of L couldn't keep Ohio from taking six of last nine points and lost the set 25-23.

The second set started off in competitive fashion with both teams trading points to make it 9-9 early. The Cards then fell to a small deficit, but kept it close as both teams continued to swap points. U of L finally gained the lead at 20-19 after a 6-2 run. The Cards had to fight off the Bobcats to win the set. Freshman Caitlin Welch made an impressive dig that led to Lola Arslanbekova driving home a kill to take the set.

After the break, the Cards begin the third set with fire as they jumped out to a 6-1 lead. However, U of L dropped five of nine points to let Ohio back into the match at 11-10. Not intimidated by the Bobcat run, the Cardinal squad put together a run to break out to an 18-12 lead. Lola Arslanbekova and Anastasia Artemeva both had five kills to win the set 25-22.

Similar to previous sets, the fourth set consisted of the Cards and Bobcats matching each other point for point. The Bobcats eventually managed to break the ice and had a 9-4 run to take a 13-9 lead. The Cards continued to lose ground as hampered by hot Ohio hitting percentage of .593. U of L was unable to overcome the deficit and dropped the fourth set 25-16.

Freshman Taylor Brauneis started the fifth set with an ace that helped fuel an early 6-1 advantage. However, putting the Bobcats weren't going away, as U of L gave the Ohio six of eight points to bring the deficit back within one. Once again, the Cards managed to make a run of their own to take seven of the last nine points and won the final set 15-9.

Senior Lindsey Mango and Emily Juhl both earned all tournament honors with the tournament MVP crown going to Anastasia Artemeva after having two impressive offensive games over the weekend.

Louisville will play rival Kentucky in Lexington Wednesday, September 1 at 7:00 pm.

All Louisville Invitational Tournament Team:Chrissy Knuth, NDSUJennifer Lopez, NDSU
Michell Jantsch, OUSue Jacobi, OU
Lindsey Mango, ULEmily Juhl, UL
MVP: Anastasia Artemeva, UL
Story by: Ryan Jones