University of Louisville
Depaul
Volleyball Drives Out Demons 3-2, Streak Now 12
November 03, 2000 | Women's Volleyball
Nov. 3, 2000
LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Anastasia Zaitseva had 30 kills, two aces and 11 digs to lead the University of Louisville to a 3-2 win over DePaul University in Conference USA volleyball action last night in Cardinal Arena.
The Cardinals, now 19-6, won 13-15, 15-10, 9-15, 15-7, 15-5 and boosted its conference mark to 10-3. DePaul, which came into the match tied with U of L in the American Division drops to 19-9 and 9-4 in C-USA. It is the first five game match Louisville has won and the first time all season that the Cardinals have dropped the first game and come back to win the match.
"We had a bit of a lull and it was very gratifying to see us pull ourselves together and finish strong," said Leonid Yelin. Louisville started the match flatfooted, allowing DePaul to spurt out to an 11-3 lead. The Cardinals answered with an 8-1 run and then tied at 13 but did not score again.
"Our hitters ran into some good blocking in the first game and it may have flustered them a bit," said Yelin.
The second game closely mirrored the first, only this time it was the Cardinals jumping out to 10-3 lead. Hitting a blistering .378, the Cardinals has 21 kills on 37 attacks. Momentum swang back to the Blue Demons in the third game of the televised match. DePaul took advantage of Louisville errors to build an 8-1 lead. The Cardinals made a brief comeback attempt with four straight points to make it 9-5. It was too little, too late, as the Blue Demons rolled 15-9.
"At that point, our blocking was not there for us in the middle, but luckily it came back with our outside people pickup up some nice solo blocks," said Yelin.
DePaul had a two-point lead at 7-5 and then were steamrolled by the Cardinal's 10-point run to lose 15-7. The rally-scored fifth game was all Louisville as three of the five DePaul points were on Louisville misses.
Bing Sun had 11 kills with Kelly McClain adding 10 kills, four aces, 21 digs and three blocks. Lesley Drury had 15 kills and five blocks for the Cardinals.
DePaul was led by Christa Dirr's 20 kills.
The Cardinals play Marquette tonight at 7 p.m. in Cardinal Arena.
The game will be broadcast today at 12:30 p.m. on WDRB-41.
