Oct. 3, 2007

Final Stats

CHICAGO - Sophomore Dana VanDiggelen had another stellar match with a team-high 16 kills, but Wright State's offense was too much as the visiting Raiders claimed a 3-0 (30-22, 30-27, 30-22)?win over Loyola tonight at Alumni Gym. The Ramblers drop to 4-13, 1-5 Horizon while Wright State improves to 7-12, 4-3 with its second consecutive win.

"It was great to see Dana have another great match tonight and I was happy with the play of Katie Johnson tonight, stepping into the lineup and putting the ball down," said head coach Marcie Bomhack. "On the whole, I think we were a step slow out there, part of which can be attributed to the long match last night, but Wright State played well tonight and they deserve credit for that."

Loyola opened the match strong, using a 6-2 spurt and opening up a 14-9 lead on a Keily Zins kill. However, Wright State immediately responded by taking advantage of sloppy passing to score the next five points and pull into a 14-14 tie. The teams essentially traded points to get to 21-all before Wright State took over, using three Samantha Connor kills in a 9-1, game-ending run.

Game two took on a similar pattern, as kills from Melissa Craig and Johnson gave the Ramblers a 12-8 lead. Again, the lead proved to be short-lived, as Wright State reeled off eight of the next nine points to snag a 16-13 lead at the midway point. Loyola managed to slowly crawl back into the game and a block from VanDiggelen and Mallory Curran forged a 24-24 stalemate. Consecutive Wright State errors gave the Ramblers a 26-25 lead and another Johnson kill moments later kept LU on top (27-26). However, that would be it for Loyola the rest of the way, as a hitting error tied it at 27 and Alisha Kimbro finished it off with three straight kills. Both teams were in rhythm in game two, with Loyola swinging at a .326 clip (18-3-46) while the Raiders swung away at a .296 efficiency (22-6-54).

The final game also went according to the blueprint, with the Ramblers surging to a 13-10 lead on a Johnson kill. Wright State battled to even the set at 14 and pushed out to a 19-15 lead on a double block at the net. A service error followed another Johnson kill to give the Raiders the ball back and three straight points extended the lead to seven, 23-16. A VanDiggelen kill made it a 25-21 game but Wright State was too tough down the stretch and closed out the win.

The visitors hit a sterling .301 for the match compared to .205 for Loyola.

VanDiggelen had 16 kills one night after banging 22 kills on 73 swings. She added 10 kills for her second straight double-double. Johnson, making just her second collegiate start, also reached double figures, burying a career-best 11 kills. Kimbro had a match-high 20 kills to lead Wright State.

Loyola hits the road for a pair of matches this weekend, beginning with a Friday night match (6 p.m. CT) at Youngstown State.