Aug. 24, 2007

Box Score

BATON ROUGE, La. - The Saint Louis volleyball team charged out of the gate, showing little rust in disposing of Louisiana-Monroe 30-12, 30-13, 30-14 in its season opener at the Mizuno Tiger Classic in Baton Rouge, La. With a .532 attack percentage for the match, the Billikens shattered the previous school mark of .453 set by the 1995 squad.

"I'm really excited about how we played today," SLU head coach Anne Kordes said. "We looked poised, experienced and prepared. It definitely didn't look like our first game (of the season). I give a lot of credit to our staff because they had the players for the first few days of practice and the players were well prepared for this match."

After the Warhawks (0-1) scored the first point of the game, but the Billikens (1-0) fought back immediately running out to a 10-2 lead. The pivotal run included a pair of kills each from outside hitter Bridget Fonke (St. Louis, Mo. / St. Joseph's) and right side hitter Sally Warning (Appleton, Wis. / Kimberly). SLU continued to push the game further out of ULM's reach, eventually earning the 30-12 victory.

Scoring in game two was a back and forth battle until Sammi McCloud (Columbia, Ill. / Columbia) sparked the Bills with a kill and Sarah Entzeroth (St. Louis, Mo. / Duchesne) aced the Warhawks on back-to-back serves. Fonke added three kills to push the lead out to 14-6 before SLU scored eight straight points to make it 22-7. Saint Louis, which hit .556 in the game, went on to win 30-13.

Game three was much like the first two with the Billikens out-hitting the Warhawks for the third-consecutive match. SLU hit .714 to ULM's .125 en route to a school-record breaking attack percentage of .532 for the match.

Fonke finished with a match and career-high 15 kills, while middle blockers Sutton Lasater (St. Louis, Mo. / Marquette) and Lauren Christman (Oak Brook, Ill. / Hinsdale Central) added eight and seven kills, respectively. Christman led the squad with a match-high .700 hitting percentage and five block assists.

"This was Bridget Fonke debut as an outside hitter and she looked like a seasoned veteran. I'm excited for her because I think there are more performances like that to come (from her)," Kordes added. "Sammi also had a great match. She served well, she passed well, played defense, blocked and hit well. It's a lot to ask from a young player to go out there and be a leader and do that every match. But she handled it well and looked like she's been doing it her whole career."

Tomorrow SLU faces New Orleans at 1 p.m. before closing out the tournament against host LSU at 7 p.m.