October 5, 2002
Truman Volleyball's Offense Too Much For SIU-Edwardsville
The Truman State University volleyball team woke up after dropping the second game and completed a 3-1 (30-27, 28-30, 30-18, 30-23) victory over SIU-Edwardsville on Saturday afternoon at Pershing Arena. The Bulldogs had one of its better offensive performances in school history in the non-conference victory.
The Bulldogs set a school record with 78 assists for a four-game match and they also had the second-most kills (82) and fifth-best hitting percentage (.309) in school history for a four-game match. Truman was especially impressive the final two games when they recorded 43 assists and a .326 hitting percentage.
Leading the way was Shelby Orthwerth who had 29 kills, tenth-most in school history for a match. Ortwerth had a .410 attack percentage and also recorded 13 digs. Kelly Vogel added 18 kills and 18 digs while Jessica Sears had 17 kills and 19 digs. Jennifer Hunter and Micaela Walter had nine and eight kills, respectively, and Walter had a team-high six blocks. Monica Marlowe was the Bulldogs setter for most of the day and had 65 assists, 18 digs and five blocks. Libero Rebecca Knefelkamp had 15 digs in the victory.
SIU-Edwardsville had four players in double-figure kills led by Jennifer Trame with 12. Erica Schuette had 51 assists and 16 digs and Jenny Franklin recorded a team-high 19 digs. Kelly Schaill and Andrea Voss each had four blocks.
The turning point of the match came in the third game with the score tied 11-11. A side out gave Truman the lead and Kelly Vogel served 10 straight points to give the Bulldogs a large lead that would never be threatened. The Bulldogs also jumped out quickly in the fourth game with a 9-3 advantage. The Cougars got within one once but Truman pulled away for the win.
Truman has now won 10 straight matches and improved to 14-4 on the year. The squad currently leads the MIAA Conference with a 7-0 record. SIU-Edwardsville fell to 13-6 on the season.