Broncos lose close one, leave Hawaii winless

By Scott Sierzenga
Western Herald

The season didn’t start the way Western Michigan’s Volleyball team hoped in Hawaii at the Chevron Rainbow Wahine Invitational this past weekend.
WMU began their season with a pair of 3‑0 losses to No. 9 University of Hawaii and No. 7 University of California Los Angeles.

The first two losses seemed to burn like fuel for WMU in their last match of the invitational against No. 25 Santa Clara University. Western Michigan started off strong in its final match going on a 7‑1 run and eventually forcing a Santa Clara timeout with the score at 9‑4. The eventually took the first set from Santa Clara led by the play of senior outside hitter Michelle Moore, who was responsible for six of the 16 WMU kills in that first set. WMU defense played a decisive factor in the set as well holding Santa Clara to a .200 hitting average and nine kills.

SCU responded quickly to Western Michigan’s early start by posting three runs of their own in the second set. SCU quickly built a 6‑2 lead against WMU and after a senior libero Caitlin Strimel ace came out to cut the deficit down for the Brown and Gold, but prompted an 11‑4 run for Santa Clara, putting the lead for them at 17‑8 en‑route to evening the match at one set a piece.

Santa Clara’s stats were impressive in the second set hitting .565 with 15 kills and only two errors. WMU struggled hitting .097.

It was Moore of the same in the third set as Moore served for seven straight points to give Western Michigan a 7‑2 lead. Santa Clara closed the gap out throughout the set trailing only 12‑11 at one point but the net play of WMU kept them ahead with great blocking performances by junior outside hitter Allyson Doyle, freshman middle blocker Jessica Brown and senior outside hitter Katie Eberling.

Western Michigan combined for seven blocks in the set held SCU’s hitting to .000 with 12 kills and 12 errors. Sophomore middle blocker Ashley Turnage hit .571 with five kills and three blocking assists to help WMU lead two sets to one.

After squaring up the match 2‑2, Santa Clara started out the final set with a 6‑3 lead, when head coach Colleen Munson called a timeout and started a 6‑3 rally for the Brown and Gold which evened the score at nine. Santa Clara ended the match on a 6‑2 run to take what would have been the first Western Michigan win of the year.

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Posted by heraldstaff on Aug 30 2009. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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