TicketsVolleyball Opens Season With Win
DuPont cracks top 10 of career kill list
Contact: Shawn Sell
8/29/2003
Julie DuPont had game-highs of 23 kills and 15 digs in UC's season-opening win over Southwest Missouri State. |
FAIRFAX, Va.---Julie DuPont tallied a match-high 23 kills to lead the University of Cincinnati volleyball team to a four-game victory over Southwest Missouri State in the opening round of the Patriot Invitational on Friday afternoon.
With the 23 kills, DuPont moves into 10th place on UC?s all-time career list in just over two seasons of play with 963 to her credit. Current Bearcat assistant coach Stephanie (Meining) Rosfeld is next on the chart with 982 kills.
?It was a great win for us against a great team,? stated Bearcat head coach Reed Sunahara. ?We had a bit of a letdown in game three, but we came back strong and pulled out the win. I thought we were a little tentative at first, but we played hard and competed well.?
The Bearcats jumped to a 2-0 lead after surviving a tough first game, 33-31 and scoring a 30-27 victory in game two. Both teams hit well in the first stanza, with the Bears holding a .400 to .300 advantage over UC. Cincinnati pulled out game two despite being outhit by a .393 to .222 clip in the game.
The Bearcats went cold in game three of the match, hitting just .150 to SMS? .326 to climb back into the match. But UC turned up the defense in what would prove to be the final game, limiting SMS to just .065 while hitting a match-high .407 to close out the first win of the season.
In addition to the match-high in kills, DuPont also scored a match-high 15 digs. Maria Pongonis, a transfer from Ohio State, made good use of her debut, adding a double-double with 12 kills and 11 digs.
Erin Murphy paced SMS with 20 kills and 13 digs, while Linette White added 19 kills and Leah Johnson had 13 digs.
UC wastes little time in returning to action as they will face George Washington at 5:30 p.m. today.