WVU Mountaineer Sports: Basketball | Football | News |Volleyball: Mountaineers Fall to Cardinals

The West Virginia University volleyball team lost a tough match to Louisville 3-1 (14-25, 25-22, 17-25, 16-25), this afternoon at Cardinal Arena.

            Despite taking a set, the Mountaineers (5-14, 3-5) could not stop the Cardinals (16-5, 8-0) as they recorded 53 kills and 10 total blocks.

            "We came out a little tentative in set one and it took us a little bit to get going but we started to gain some momentum at the end of that set," coach Jill Kramer says. "Then in the second set, we came out really strong and served and passed better. We were more efficient attacking and when we had our offense clicking, we were fine because we played pretty good defense. Michelle (Kopecky) brought it on her serve and really put pressure on their serve receive and when we could back that up with some fire power offensively, we were in the match and when we didn't, we struggled through it.

"I thought we did a good job of getting used to the environment quickly and really feeding off of the energy of the crowd. We are focusing on the good things from that match and then we are going to use that when we go out to Cincinnati tomorrow."  

            The first set was all about the Cardinals as Louisville took a 7-2 lead before a WVU timeout. Hitting and service errors hurt the Mountaineers as the Cardinals led by as much as 11 before taking set one 25-14.

            After the first set loss, WVU stormed out to a 6-2 lead to start the second set before a 4-0 run by Louisville tied the score. Louisville capitalized on WVU errors to take a 19-16 lead before a Cardinal error and block from senior outside hitter Michelle Kopecky and freshman middle blocker Evyn McCoy pulled it within one. The teams traded points until 22-21 when the Mountaineers scored four straight points to take a set from the Cardinals for the first time since 2006.

With the match tied, WVU kept the score close, but after two big runs from Louisville, the Mountaineers found themselves down 20-9. WVU responded with three straight points, but the run was not enough as Louisville took the set 25-17 and a 2-1 lead in the match.   

Louisville used the momentum from third set to take the fourth set and the match.

            Junior outside hitter Anke de Jong led the Mountaineers with 16 kills and a .324 hitting percentage while Kopecky chipped in 12 kills and five service aces. WVU was led defensively by senior libero Serinna Russo who recorded 25 digs.

            The team returns to action tomorrow afternoon at Fifth Third Arena where it will take on the Cincinnati Bearcats at 2 p.m.