Tulane University
Depaul
Volleyball Falls To DePaul, 3-1
Oct 20, 2001 | Women's Volleyball
Oct. 20, 2001
NEW ORLEANS, La. - DePaul outside hitter Stephanie Bishop had a match-high 23 kills to set the Conference USA career kills record and lead the Blue Demons to a 3-1 victory over the Tulane University volleyball team Saturday night in Fogelman Arena.
Bishop, who hit .333 in the match with eight errors in 45 swings, now has1,856 kills for her career, breaking the former mark of 1,843 set by Cincinnati's Becky Tenkman. Bishop also led five Blue Demons with double-digit dig totals with 23, followed by Melissa Murphy and Melissa Nordine with 17 each, Katie Engel with 16 and Kara Jakusz with 14.
"There's a reason DePaul is No.1 in the conference in defense," head coach Betsy Becker said. "They dug absolutely everything. It was like hitting the ball onto a backboard. No matter where we hit the ball, they answered with a great defensive play. We did not control the tempo of games one, three and four, and in order to play a team as good as DePaul, you've got to be able to control the pace of the game."
The loss drops Tulane to 14-8 on the year and 6-4 in C-USA play. DePaul, meanwhile, improves to 16-4 overall and 7-2 in league action.
"Our passing and defense was out of sync, so we'll have to focus on that this week in practice," Becker said. "We've got a tough road ahead of us still, and we've just to go take this loss, flush it away, regroup and get it back together for next weekend.
"We'll have our captain, Erin Dobyanski, back for next week, and that will provide us with a voice of experience. When you play a team with six seniors on the floor, you've got to have your veterans on the court. Unfortunately, Erin got hurt against UNO and wasn't able to go tonight."
Redshirt-freshman outside hitter Anastasia Kenon led Tulane with 21 kills, and junior outside hitter Britney Hurst was finished with 15, but it was not enough to overcome 46 errors, including seven service errors. Hurst tallied a .308 attack percentage with three errors in 39 attacks, but the Tulane club hit just .166 after tallying 54 attacks and 24 errors in 181 swings.
Sophomore middle hitter Lauren Jones-McClain and freshman outside hitter Lindsey Norman tied for the team-lead with 12 digs each, and Hurst was close behind with 11. Jones-McClain tallied nine blocks on the evening as the Green Wave tallied 18 blocks as a team.
Tulane got off to a good start, jumping out to a 10-7 lead. The lead swelled to as many as five as Tulane held a 13-8 lead, but DePaul answered with an 8-0 run to take a 16-13 lead the Blue Demons would never relinquish. Tulane cut the lead to one at 19-18, but that was as close as the Green Wave would get DePaul outscored the home team 21-4 the rest of the way to take game one, 30-22.
DePaul jumped out to the lead in game two, holding an 8-3 lead early on. But this time, it was Tulane's turn to come back as the Green Wave went on a 7-2 run to take an 11-10 advantage. It was a back-and-forth battle in the middle portion of the contest, but Tulane would not lose the lead the rest of the game. The Blue Demons tied the score at 28-all, but the Green Wave bounced back to capitalize on a pair of DePaul errors to win, 30-28.
Game three was a back-and-forth battle throughout, and after trailing 13-10, Tulane battled back to take an 18-15 lead. DePaul, however, would not go away as the Blue Devils came back to tie the score at 19-19 and went on a 21-3 run the rest of the way en route to a 30-22 win.
The momentum of a hard fought, game-three win was evident in the fourth stanza as DePaul raced out to a 6-3 lead. Tulane cut the lead to one at 6-5, but the Blue Demons went on a 13-7 run to take a 19-12 advantage and control of the match. The Green Wave battled back to cut the deficit to just four on six occasions, but that was as close as Tulane could get as DePaul went on to win, 30-26.
Four DePaul players tallied double-digit kill totals, including Melissa Flanigan and Christa Dirr with 15 kills each. As a team, the Blue Demons hit a .223 clip with 75 kills and 33 errors in 188 attempts.
The road does not get any easier for the Green Wave as Tulane returns to action on Thursday when they travel to Kentucky to take on preseason C-USA favorite Louisville at 7 p.m. After the match with the Cardinals, Tulane will take on preseason No. 2 Cincinnati on Saturday.
