Nov. 23, 2002

Final Stats

Chicago - CHICAGO - The Saint Louis University volleyball team opened play at the 2002 Healthy Choice Conference USA Volleyball tournament with a 3-0 sweep over Marquette and handed coach Marilyn Nolen the 800th victory of her coaching career. Nolen becomes just the third NCAA Division I coach in history to tally 800 wins at four-year institutions. Game scores were 30-23, 32-30 30-27. UCLA coach Andy Banachowski and former BYU coach Elaine Michaelis are the only other Division I coaches with 800 wins at four-year schools.

"It makes me think about my coaching history since I started at the age of 23," said Nolen. I have seen tremendous changes in the sport of volleyball. This is not a big thing for me, but is big for volleyball. This is a credit to all the players I've been fortunate to coach through the years."

In game one, the Billiikens led 8-7 but rattled off a 5-0 run for a 13-7 lead. After the teams traded points, Marquette answered with a 5-0 spurt to cut the SLU lead to 14-13.After a Marquette kill, Brooke Minniear served an ace and Brooke Minniear tallied points to push the Billikens to game point at 29-21. MU scored two in a row, but a service error ended the game at 30-23. Ashley Hunter charted six kills to lead the Billikens. SLU only hit .186 but held MU to just a .022 hitting percentage.

Game two was close for most of the early going as neither team led by more than two points. Marquette finally took a 16-13 lead. The Billikens re-took the momentum with a 5-0 outburst and an 18-13 advantage. The Golden Eagles slowly cut into the lead and closed to 20-19 on a service ace. A Billiken ball handling error scored MU a point and a SLU blocking error made it 29-28. Marquette tied the game on an ace and took the lead 30-29. But the Billikens staved off game point and tallied three in a row to win the game. Minniear smoked a ball in the middle of the MU defense to tie the game. Knobeloch placed a ball in to give SLU game point at 31-30. On the next swing by Marquette, the ball tipped the net and fell back into MU's court as SLU won 32-30.

Game three was tied 4-4 before three straight points put the Billikens up 7-4. SLU slowly built the lead to 11-6 and held it until 14-9. The Billikens still had a five-point lead at 19-14. Kills by Knobeloch and Minniear gave the Billikens a 21-14 lead. Marquette closed the gap with two kills and two SLU errors and made it 24-21. Brooke Minniear served an ace to close out the historic victory for Nolen. Brooke Minniear notched a double-double with 10 kills and 14 digs

The No. 4 seeded Billikens are now 21-9 on the season while Marquette ends its season at 13-15. The Billikens face top-seeded Louisville at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 24.