Sept. 10, 2005
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - The Boilermaker volleyball team moved to 7-0 with a 3-0 sweep of South Carolina Saturday morning. Purdue topped the Gamecocks 30-24, 30-25, 30-12 in the contest.
Game 1 of the match was one of swinging momentum. South Carolina took an early 5-1 lead. The Boilermakers used kills from freshman Danita Merlau (New Palestine, Ind.) and senior Leah Wischmeier (Brownstown, Ind.) to pull within three at 7-4, but the Gamecocks expanded their point margin to six at 11-5 and again at 13-7. Then, Purdue came alive, scoring 11 of the next 14 points to go up 18-16. Merlau tallied three kills and sophomore Lizzie Jacques (Winfield, Ill.) served up an ace, while South Carolina committed five errors in the string. The Boilermaker leads rose to seven at 28-21 as five different players tallied kills. A Gamecock serving error made it 29-22, but South Carolina scored the next two points to keep the game going. Sophomore Sam Mader (Algonquin, Ill.) put down the game-winning kill to give Purdue the 30-24 win.
"I thought we got caught up in the hype a little bit," head coach Dave Shondell said. "I think our players thought they were playing the Russian national team or something. We came in knowing that South Carolina was very talented and physically gifted, which they are, but I think that caused us to be a little tentative. Then, we realized that we were a better team. We struggled with our passing at the beginning, but then our serving started to pick up and offense was very difficult to stop."
The Gamecocks took a 5-2 lead to begin Game 2 and maintained the advantage until Purdue put together a 6-0 run, which included kills by Jacques, Wischmeier and Dargan, to turn a 9-6 deficit into a 12-9 lead. With the score at 15-11, South Carolina chalked up a 7-2 run to take an 18-17 lead. The teams traded the lead with a pair of two-point runs, before tying at 20-20 on a kill by Mader. Ties at 21, 22, and 23 followed, before Merlau put up a solo block to give Purdue its first lead since 19-18. A South Carolina kill tied it at 24-24, but then the Boilermakers took control, scoring six of the final seven points, two on kills by freshman Stephanie Lynch (New Albany, Ind.) to win the game. Mader again dealt the final blow in the 30-25 victory. Purdue held the Gamecocks to a .098 hitting percentage in the stanza.
Game 3 could only be described as a blowout as the Boilermakers served up five aces and hit .650 to South Carolina's -.091 effort en route to a 30-12 win. The Gamecocks took their lone lead of the game at 3-2, before the Boilermakers put up four straight points, including back-to-back aces from junior Brittany Dildine (West Lafayette, Ind.) to go up 6-3. After a brief pause, Purdue continued to raise the point margin boosting it to 18-6, as sophomore Anne Mastandrea (Downers Grove, Ill.) chalked up two aces and junior Melanie Ukovich (Minooka, Ill.) served up one. Jacques, Wischmeier and Mader each put up two kills in the string. South Carolina scored on a Marija Milosevic kill, but the Purdue rally continued with a 7-1 run, which make it 25-8 in favor of the Boilermakers. Mader and Lynch each put down two kills as Purdue scored five of the last eight points en route to the 30-12 shellacking. A block by Dargan and Jacques sewed up the three-game sweep.
Merlau and Mader led Purdue with kill tallies of 12 and 11 respectively. Lynch and Wischmeier each added eight put downs to the Boilermaker totals. Mader posted a .526 hitting percentage in the match with 11 kills in 19 swings. Freshman Kelli Miller (Muncie, Ind.) led the Boilermakers with nine digs, as eight different players got in on the defensive action. Lynch also led Purdue at the net with four blocks, including two solo efforts.
The Boilermakers (7-0) return to action at 5 p.m. eastern time, when they take on the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers.