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| SportsSaturday, August 25, 2007 4:27 PM CDT |
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Redbirds come on late, but No. 7 Florida rolls
NORMAL — Three months from now, the Illinois State volleyball team hopes it will have exceeded expectations. If it does, it might point to the third game of its season opener against No. 7-nationally ranked Florida as the first promising sign of things to come. | Photo gallery The unheralded Redbirds, only picked for fifth in the Missouri Valley Conference, had a 27-26 lead in that third game of what would become a 30-19, 30-24, 30-27 setback. “I really thought we had that third game,” said junior M.C. Richmond, who led ISU with 14 kills on .270 hitting. “I think that third game showed so much of what we are capable of.” The thrills of that game, which included 13 ties and seven lead changes, was a nice reward for the 3,357 who showed up, the ninth largest crowd in history to see a volleyball match in Redbird Arena and the largest since 2004. “Our students were unbelievable tonight,” said ISU coach Sharon Dingman. “That was the greatest atmosphere you could ask for.” The outcome was a significant improvement over the Redbirds’ three-game loss to Florida last year when they scored 11 fewer points. “They look very different,” said Florida coach Mary Wise, who was Dingman’s teammate at Purdue. “You can win a lot of matches with what they can do serving, their scrappy play and their ability to get kills out of different positions.” The match re-established the importance of Kari Staehlin to the ISU offense. She finished with 10 kills on 23 swings for a .304 hitting percentage, but she only had 10 attempts after two games. “I just told Erin (Lindsey) ‘I don’t care what you have to do. If you have to stand on your head and use your feet, set Kari more,’ ” Dingman said. That was about the only complaint Dingman had with her all-MVC setter, whose stats compared favorably with those of Florida All-American Angie McGinnis. Lindsey had 36 assists to 33 for McGinnis. “I love their setter … her ability to distribute the ball, how athletic she is,” Wise said. “She’s really fun to watch.” “With the speed of their sets, I think they can be a very good team by mid-season,” said McGinnis, whose team outhit ISU, .333 to .188. ISU had no answer for 6-foot-1 senior Marcie Hampton, a two-time All-American who had 15 kills on .400 hitting. Florida set a menacing tone from the start, acing the Redbirds three times while taking a 6-0 lead in the first game. “Game one, we benefited because of some unforced errors,” said Wise, who wanted her team to get more than the six blocks it had. In game two, ISU was within 21-20 before the Gators escaped with a 9-4 run. The Redbirds committed five of their 11 service errors that game. “We had three services errors and got aced after a timeout (to fall behind 27-23). I thought those were all pretty big mental errors,” Dingman said. ISU hopes to fix some of those miscues today in its own Redbird Classic at noon against Miami of Ohio, which lost to Valparaiso Friday, 30-28, 23-30, 30-27, 30-25. The Redbirds meet Valparaiso at 7 p.m. today. Get area high school sports scores and statistics at Varsity Sports. E-mail this story | Print this story | Search archives | RSS Show comments |  Hide comments | Hide comments on all stories |
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