University of Minnesota Athletics
No. 1 Volleyball Wins Big Ten Opener Over Michigan State
9/24/2004 12:00:00 AM | Volleyball
With the win, Minnesota is off to it third-best start after 13 matches in school history at 12-1. The Golden Gophers have also won 11 straight matches for the first time since 2002. The 11-match winning streak is tied for the fourth- longest streak in school history.
Minnesota put on a dominating defensive performance, limiting Michigan State to a -.027 hitting percentage on the night. It was the first time since Sept. 7, 2002 that the Golden Gophers held an opponent to a negative hitting percentage. That came when Minnesota held Rhode Island to a -.009 hitting percentage.
"I have said all along that the signature to our team is playing good defense," said Minnesota head coach Mike Hebert. "I thought our associate head coach David Boos came up with a great game plan for this match. We did very well on our one-on-one blocking assignments. We challenged them to hit where we wanted them too. I thought we played great defense all night."
The Golden Gophers were led by Erin Martin (Ames, Iowa) who posted her ninth straight double-figure kill game with 12 on the night. Paula Gentil (Forteleaza Ceara', Brazil) had a match-high 19 digs on the night. Lindsey Taatjes (Prinsburg, Minn.) and Marci Peniata (Plymouth, Minn.) had 11 and 10 digs respectively on the night. Taatjes also had three kills and 19 assists. Kelly Bowman (Maple Grove, Minn.) had six kills, 19 assists and five digs.
Lisa Reinhart (White Bear Lake, Minn.) tied her season-high with two service aces and had seven digs. Meredith Nelson (St. Croix Falls, Wis.) also hit .400 (8-2-15) for the match.
Minnesota stormed out to an early 11-3 lead in game one. The Golden Gophers opened the lead all the way out to 27-12, before claiming game one 30-16. Trisha Bratford (Reseda, Calif.) and Bowman each had four kills in the game. Bowman, Peniata and Reinhart each had a service in the game, while Gentil had eight digs.
Minnesota jumped out to 15-9 lead in game two. The Golden Gophers scored eight of the 13 points to take a 23-14 lead. Michigan State scored the next three points to cut it to 23-17, but Minnesota answered with the next four points to go ahead 28-17. The two teams exchanged points, before Gentil fired a service ace to give Minnesota game two 30-18.
The Golden Gophers outhit the Spartans .345 to .000 in the second game. Martin paced Minnesota with four kills.
Minnesota ran out to a 10-3 lead in game three. Michigan State scored the next five points to make it 10-8. From that point, the Golden Gophers scored 11 of the next 16 points to take a 21-13 lead. Minnesota pushed the lead out to 24-14, and would lead by at least eight points the rest of the way as it moved to a 30-19 game-three victory.
The Golden Gophers outhit Michigan State .283 to -.024 on the night. Minnesota also had five service aces to one for the Spartans, along with having 55 digs to 37 for Michigan State.
Kim Schram had half of the Spartans kills with 15 on the night. Schram also lead the team with eight digs in the match, along with Maggie Griffin.
Minnesota will take on Michigan on Saturday, Sept. 25 at 7 p.m. The Wolverines moved to 10-1 by winning their Big Ten opener over Iowa in three games.
