Oct. 30, 2009

Box Score

ST. LOUIS - Saint Louis hit at a .279 rate and locked in defensively to capture a 25-15, 25-18, 25-20 Atlantic 10 Conference win over Fordham on Friday evening at Chaifetz Arena. The Billikens improve to 17-6 overall, 10-1 in A-10 play, while the Rams fall to 12-16, 2-8 in league play.

After Fordham scored the first point of the match, SLU rallied for six straight points to capture the lead for good at 6-1. A kill from Casey Chernin sparked the rally that also included two kills from Megan Boken, one by Sammi McCloud and two errors by the Rams. Fordham sliced the lead to four at 9-5 before the Billikens responded a Whitney Roth kill and two McCloud aces to make it 12-5. The teams swapped points prior to a 3-0 spurt by SLU that brought the score to 16-7. Saint Louis' lead ballooned to 10 points at 20-10 before the Rams trimmed the margin back to eight with back-to-back kills from Jenna Hart and Christi Griffiths. But the Billikens again were able to push the lead out to 10 points for the final score of 25-15. Six Bills tallied kills in the opening set in which SLU out-hit Fordham .379 to .031.

The second began the same way as the first with the Rams scoring the opening point and Saint Louis rallying for six consecutive points to earn a 6-1 advantage. Boken again notched two kills during the spree, while land Chernin added one apiece and Fordham committed a pair of errors. A kill from Griffiths interrupted the rally briefly, but the Bills managed to score two more points on errors by the Rams to make it 8-2. Fordham roared back with four points to cut the deficit to two at 8-6, but Saint Louis was able to expand the margin to four at 13-9 courtesy of consecutive kills from Bridget Fonke and Chernin. A Billiken serving error and a Sara Friede kill narrowed the gap to two at 13-11, and Fordham would get as close as two points on three more occasions but the Billikens closed the set on a 5-1 run to earn the victory.

The teams swapped points early in the third set until the Billikens broke the stalemate with a 5-0 burst. McCloud's kill started the run and was followed by a Rams' hitting error. Then Boken served an ace, McCloud tacked on another kill and Fonke terminated to complete the rally. Fordham chipped away at Saint Louis' lead eventually cutting it to 12-11 after a three-point spurt. However, the Bills answered with three points of their own to return the advantage to 15-11. Katie Wells pounded a kill for the Rams before her team was plagued by errors, allowing SLU to surge ahead 19-13. The Billikens held onto a four to five point lead before Fordham put together a late spree to make it a three-point game. But Saint Louis scored three of the next four points to earn the match victory. Both teams hit poorly in the final set with SLU edging Fordham with a .159 clip to the Rams' .048 rate.

Roth posted a double-double of 35 assists and 14 digs, while McCloud also completed a double-double with a match-high 13 kills and 10 digs to go with her two aces and three blocks. Fonke added 10 kills and seven digs, while Chernin contributed eight kills and two blocks. Boken and Whitney Behrens added 11 and eight digs, respectively.