TicketsSept. 13, 2005
Contact: Shawn Sell
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BEARCAT INVITATIONAL TOURNAMENT PAGE
SETTING THE SCENE: The University of Cincinnati opens the home portion of its 2005 volleyball schedule hosting the State Farm Bearcat Invitational presented by the Vernon Manor Hotel. Action gets underway in Fifth Third Arena with two matches on Thursday (Sept. 15), followed by a full day of action with four matches on Friday. UC will play at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday and again at Noon and 7:30 p.m. on Friday. Joining the Bearcats in the tournament will be George Washington, Jacksonville State and Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
NOTES FROM HAWAII:
- Freshman libero Melissa Zenz continued the impressive start to her collegiate career by averaging 6.17 digs per game in the three matches. With at least 20 digs in all three contests, Zenz earned a spot on the Waikiki Beach Marriott Challenge All-Tournament Team.
- Senior Maria Pongonis moved up two spots on UC's career kills per game chart, slipping into a three-way tie for seventh. With 3.26 kills per game in her career, Pongonis is tied with Sonja Jackson and Bonita Wise for seventh.
- Jenny Custer had a career day vs. Cal State Northridge, setting a new high with 18 kills and matching her personal-best with 13 digs.
ABOUT THE TOURNAMENT: The State Farm Bearcat Invitational presented by the Vernon Manor Hotel will take place on Sept. 15-16 in UC's Fifth Third Arena. Cincinnati is the host school and will be joined by squads from George Washington, Jacksonville State and Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The round robin tournament will kick off with George Washington taking on UWM at 5 p.m. on Thursday, prior to the Jacksonville State-UC contest at 7:30. UC is 2-4 entering the tournament, as is Jacksonville State. UWM has won three of five to improve to 5-4 on the year, while George Washington is 2-5. The tournament schedule follows:
Thursday, Sept. 15
George Washington vs. Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 5 p.m. ET
Jacksonville State at Cincinnati, 7:30 p.m. ET
Friday, Sept. 16
Jacksonville State vs. Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 10 a.m. ET
George Washington at Cincinnati, Noon ET
George Washington vs. Jacksonville State, 5 p.m. ET
Wisconsin-Milwaukee at Cincinnati, 7:30 p.m. ET
ABOUT JACKSONVILLE STATE: The Gamecocks will spend their second consecutive weekend in the tri-state area after dropping three-game contests to Miami (Ohio) and Xavier a week ago. JSU stands at 2-4 entering a Tuesday night clash with Tennessee-Chattanooga. Former Bearcat Suzi Terrell, who played at UC in 2002, leads Jacksonville State with 3.62 kills per game. Shari Weyer is just behind at 2.61 kills per game, while adding a team-high 0.94 blocks per game. Kisha West is another defensive leader, as she holds a team-high average of 4.10 digs per game. Setter Emily Withers, a graduate of Cincinnati's Roger Bacon High, leads the team with 10.95 assists per game.
ABOUT GEORGE WASHINGTON: The Colonials come to Cincinnati having dropped four in a row, including all three at last weekend's Georgia Tech Invitational, to slip to 2-5 this season. The balanced George Washington offense has three players averaging over two kills per game led by Janine Brown's 2.59 and Juliene McLaughlin's 2.57. Defensively, GW gets 1.13 blocks per game from Kelly Kabbes and 4.68 digs per game from Jessica Vessey. UC will be searching for vindication after a four-game loss to the Colonials at the 2003 Patriot Invitational.
ABOUT WISCONSIN-MILWAUKEE: The Panthers dropped two of three matches at their own tournament last weekend, including a marathon five-gamer with with perennial power Northern Iowa. Sophomore Leanne Felsing is UWM's top player, seeing time at both outside hitter and setter and averaging 3.34 kills, 5.20 assists and 3.34 digs per game. Cheryl Hegemann leads the squad with 3.37 kills per game, while Becky Peters is the top digger at 3.83 per game. At the net, Sarah Moore (1.35) and Molly McNab (1.04) lead the squad in blocks per game.
TOURNAMENT HONORS: A pair Bearcats have earned all-tournament team honors in the squad's first two tournaments of the year. In the season-opening Las Cruces Hilton Classic, senior Maria Pongonis averaged 4.82 kills and 3.00 digs per game to earn the honor. Freshman libero Melissa Zenz followed that up by averaging 6.17 digs per game to earn recognition at last week's Waikiki Beach Marriott Challenge.
NEW LEADER: With the graduation of four-year mainstays Julie DuPont, Leslie Newell and Rachel Torblaa, Maria Pongonis has stepped forward as a team leader for the 2005 season. The only senior on the Bearcat roster, Pongonis leads the squad with 4.22 kills per game. Pongonis has reached double figure kills in all six matches this season, including a season-high 19 against both Texas-Pan American and Tulsa and has also added five double-doubles. Pongonis finds herself ranked eighth in the BIG EAST in kills per game this week.
THE NEXT QUEEN?: While she is still nearly 2,000 digs away from the school record, freshman libero Melissa Zenz may be the next UC player to challenge the program's "Queen of Digs," Trish Ladusaw. In her first two weeks of collegiate competition, Zenz has averaged a stout 6.30 digs per game and has 20-plus digs in five of this year's six matches. In recording 28 digs vs. Tulsa and 26 vs. New Mexico State, Zenz became the first Bearcat since Ladusaw in 2002 to total over 20 digs in two consecutive matches. Her five 20-plus dig efforts are the most by a Bearcat since Lindsey Garrison had five in 2003. In this week's BIG EAST rankings, Zenz leads the conference in digs per game.
RECORD BREAKING DEBUT: In just the third match of her collegiate career, redshirt freshman Jessie Nevitt etched her name in the UC record books with 11 block assists vs. New Mexico State. The total set a new school record for block assists in a four-game match, breaking the mark of 10 shared by Rachel Torblaa (2002) and Myanna Hellsten (2003). Nevitt's performance also matched Torblaa's record for total blocks in a four-game match which was set in 2002. Nevitt has been outstanding early this season, averaging 2.52 kills and 1.57 blocks per game, while hitting a team-best .265. Her 14 kills vs. UCLA on Sept. 9 were also a career high.
MOST IMPROVED: Sophomore right-side hitter Jenny Custer may be the team's most improved player thus far after a stellar start to her second collegiate season. This season, Custer is averaging 3.22 kills, 2.43 digs and 0.78 blocks per game, while tallying the first three double-doubles of her career. Against Cal State Northridge on Sept. 10, Custer accumulated a career-high 18 kills, while matching her personal-best with 13 digs. Earlier this year, Custer had a career-best six blocks in a Sept. 3 match vs. New Mexico State.
AT THE CONTROLS: Junior Noel Olson is the unquestioned starter at setter this season and in her second year at the controls, she has gotten 2005 off to a solid start. In the opening weekend of the season, Olson climbed to sixth on UC's career assists per game chart and moved into seventh on the total assists list, passing Carrie Smith on both. Olson is averaging 7.04 assists per game in just over two seasons of action and has registered 1,795 assists. It will be awhile before Olson challenges for sixth on the assists chart, as her total is almost 1,000 behind Beth Herman's 2,638 collected from 1993-96. Olson ranks eight in the BIG EAST this week with 11.39 assists per game.
HOME COURT HEROICS: Cincinnati has enjoyed a strong home court advantage since the opening of Fifth Third Arena in 1989. In the 16 years the building has been in existence, the Bearcats have posted a 126-52 (.708) record at home, with 25 of those losses coming in a three-year span from 1991-93. A handful of those contests have also taken place outside the Arena at both the former Laurence Hall and, more recently, at St. Ursula Academy. During the program's time in Fifth Third, it has enjoyed two lengthy win streaks, including a school-record 23 match string that ended last season. At the time the streak was snapped, it represented the third-longest active streak in the nation.
UNFAMILIAR FACES: The Bearcats' move into the BIG EAST this year will give the squad a whole net set of rivals to meet up with. Of the 14 BIG EAST schools UC will face, three are new opponents (Connecticut, St. John's and Seton Hall). With the exception of Conference USA holdovers DePaul, Louisville, Marquette and South Florida, it's been awhile since UC has faced any of the new look BIG EAST members. A look at the last time UC faced each of the league schools:
Georgetown 1990 W, 3-1
Notre Dame 2002 L, 0-3
Pittsburgh 1989 L, 0-3
Rutgers 1996 W, 3-0
Syracuse 1990 L, 0-3
Villanova 1991 L, 1-3
West Virginia 1995 W, 3-2