Sept. 6, 2008

Final Stats

CHICAGO - Katie Johnson racked up a career-high 16 kills and Sarah Singer added 13 kills and 13 digs to lead Loyola to a 3-1 (25-18, 25-23, 21-25, 25-21) win over Evansville tonight to win the Loyola Invitational at the Gentile Center. Loyola maintains its perfect start, moving to 7-0 on the year, while Evansville drops to 3-5 with the loss.

"I am proud of how we kept pushing and battling and were able to get a nice win tonight," said head coach Marcie Wolbeck. "I give Evansville a lot of credit, they played well and their defense took away a lot of kills from our hitters. We have a little more firepower than last year and that showed tonight."

Loyola opened the match in what has become its typical fashion, jumping out to the early lead. This time it was a 5-0 run on Alyse Serritella's serve that gave the Ramblers an 8-2 lead. A Colleen Francis kill later boosted the lead to nine (15-6) and the Purple Aces would get no closer than six the rest of the way, with Johnson powering down her sixth kill on set point. The Ramblers hit .308 in the frame and served up four aces, two from Lauren Ditscheit.

The second set was tight in the early stages and Loyola was finally able to gain some breathing room with a 4-0 spurt that turned an 8-7 deficit into an 11-7 lead. Evansville began to slowly cut into its deficit and pulled even at 15 on a Rambler error. The teams traded points to 20-all before Loyola made a late move. After a Serritella ace gave the Ramblers a 22-20 lead, Dana VanDiggelen came up with a big solo block and Johnson followed that up with another kill to move LU to set point, 24-20. After the Aces fought off three Rambler chances, a Mallory Curran kill wrapped up a 25-23 win and a 2-0 lead in the match.

Evansville put Loyola on its heels early in game three, racing out to an 11-3 lead after five straight LU hitting errors. The Ramblers eventually bounced back and pulled within three (14-11) after a Singer ace and a Johnson kill. However, the Ramblers could get no closer than that the rest of the way, with a service error handing the Aces a 25-21 win and prolonging the match.

Set four mirrored set two, in that neither team could open up a lead in the early going. Three VanDiggelen kills highlighted a five-point Rambler spurt that gave them a 16-11 lead and they were able to maintain that margin all the way to 22-17 before Evansville mounted a final charge. The Aces scored four straight points to draw within one (22-21) before Singer was finally able to side-out for Loyola. Johnson came up with a big kill on the next point to push the Ramblers to the brink and an Evansville error ended the match, 25-21.

Johnson added seven digs to her 16 kills while Singer recorded her second double-double of the season in support. VanDiggelen and Francis each added nine kills and Curran pitched in with seven. Ditscheit had another productive night with 29 assists, 13 digs and three aces while Serritella dug a match-high 16 balls from her libero spot.

Singer, who racked up 41 kills in LU's four matches this weekend, was named the tournament's most valuable player and was joined on the all-tournament team by Johnson and Ditscheit.

The Ramblers look to stay perfect next weekend when they travel to DeKalb for a two-day tournament at Northern Illinois starting on Friday night.