Sept. 14, 2007

Box Score

EVANSTON, Ill. - Saint Louis rallied from a deficit to take game one 30-28 against Western Michigan at the Wildcat Classic opener in Evanston, Ill. The Billikens (9-2) then used a strong hitting attack to capture the match victory with 30-21 and 30-27 wins in the final two games.

"I'm excited that our team was able to pick up this win because Western Michigan is a tough team," SLU head coach Anne Kordes said. "We had to battle back in that first game and I was pleased that we were able to keep our composure. Whitney Roth did a great job running the offense, and our serving was really aggressive today."

SLU took a slim lead at the start of game one but neither team led by more than three points until Western Michigan (7-4) gained a 16-12 lead. The Broncos maintained a three to four-point advantage with a strong blocking front to keep SLU at arm's length. However, the Bills battled back with kills from Sammi McCloud, Bridget Fonke and Sutton Lasater to cut into the margin. WMU mistakes helped Saint Louis even things up at 27-27 before it closed things out with a Sally Warning kill, a triple block and a Lauren Christman kill for the victory. Fonke paced SLU with 6 kills while hitting.308.

The Billikens built a lead early in game two and continued to add to it throughout the game as the Bronco offense fell apart, finishing with a .121 attack percentage. SLU's largest advantage of the game was nine points. The Bills hit .395 in the game with Christman, Fonke and McCloud each picking up four kills.

In game three, Western Michigan came out on fire scoring the first four points before SLU got on the board. The Broncos kept the Bills at bay each time they cut the margin to one, until Saint Louis tied things up at 16-16 on kills by Christman and Fonke and a Fonke ace. The Billikens took their first lead at 17-16 on a ball handling error by WMU. SLU then pushed its lead out to three points and held on from there for the victory. SLU now owns a 2-0 lead in the all-time series.

Fonke, who reached double-digit kills for the 11th straight match, had a match-high 17 kills. Christman and Lasater contributed 11 and 10 kills, respectively. Whitney Roth picked up a double-double with 46 assists and 10 digs. Michelle Moore led Western Michigan with 10 kills.

The Billikens return to the court at 5 p.m. for a match against Drake before closing out the tournament on Saturday against host Northwestern at 2:30 p.m.