University of Louisville
at Tulane *
Volleyball Turns Back Green Wave 3-1
October 26, 2002 | Women's Volleyball
Oct. 26, 2002
NEW ORLEANS -- Freshman outside hitter Lena Ustymenko had 19 kills to lead the University of Louisville to a 3-1 win over Tulane in Conference USA volleyball action Saturday night at Fogelman Arena.
Louisville improves its record to 18-3 and 7-0 in Conference USA with the 27-30, 30-20, 30-22, 30-18 win. Tulane falls to 14-13 and 4-4 in the league. The win is the Cardinals' ninth in a row. U of L has won 13 of its last 14 matches.
"Tulane is an athletic team and we have seen them crush opponents. No way we take them for granted," said Yelin. "We just had to stay patient and stay in our strengths."
In the first game, Tulane caught the Cardinals flatfooted and sped out to a 7-1 lead. Louisville soon cut that to one on a Lena Ustymenko kill at 7-6. Louisville took its first lead at 16-15 on a pair of consecutive kills by Sun. The Cardinals slowly built a lead only to have Tulane scrap back and retake the lead at 28-27 on a miss by Sun. The Green Wave got to game point when Sun was blocked and then took the game when Sun hit wide. Neither team hit well with U of L posting a .093 percentage and the Green Wave hitting .103. However, Tulane out blocked the Cardinals 6-0 and U of L committed five service errors.
In the second game, U of L ran out to an 11-4 lead and never trailed. Tulane could get no closer than seven before falling 30-20. The Cardinals' hitting heated up considerably to .450 with Ustymenko and Sun each recording five kills. Louisville blocking finally got on the board with two to Tulane's one. Flynn's four kills on seven swings and no errors helped boost the Cards' hitting percentage.
In the third game, U of L used an 8-2 to build a lead from which the Green Wave could not recover. Ustymenko had a hot hand with seven kills. Although the Cardinals were outblocked again 4-2, their .250 hitting percentage kept them afloat.
In the fourth game, U of L took a 13-4 lead and Tulane had to use both its timeouts to try and stop the Cardinal momentum. Up 22-10, the Cardinals let the Green Wave roll on a 7-1 run and cut the lead to five. After a U of L timeout, the Cardinals were able to run off six points for the win.
Sun ended up with 15 kills with Anastasia Zaitseva and Flynn adding 15 and 14 kills respectively. Setter Jennifer Craven, who leads the league in assists had 61 assists and libero Sarah Drury had 26 digs for the Cardinals.
