Louisville Volleyball Advances to NCAA Second Round

Sonja Percan

Sonja Percan had 16 kills, three aces and 20 digs to lead the University of Louisville to a 32-30, 30-21, 30-21 sweep of Notre Dame in the first round of the NCAA Championship in Champaign, Ill. Friday night.

U of L advances to the second round of the NCAA Tournament for the sixth time in school history and improves its record to 25-5. Notre Dame ends its season at 23-7.

"I don't normally like to single out any player s for doing well or not doing so well, but today I think our seniors knew what to do and did everything they possibly could to get us going. The rest of our players then followed them, stepped up and played well," said Leonid Yelin, U of L head coach.

In the first game, U of L came out tight and fell behind 10-6. The Cardinals had a 8-4 run to pull within two at 18-16 and took their first lead at 24-23 in the midst of a eight point run sparked by four aces by Percan.

"In the first game, I think both teams were nervous and both teams made mistakes they would not have made in a regular season game," said Yelin.

Notre Dame called timeout and responded with five straight points to tie at 28. U of L had game point three different times and finally won 32-30. The Cardinals were outblocked 4-2 but outhit the Irish .226 to .208.

"I think we were definitely tight in the first part of the first game, But when our blocking gets going the rest of our game goes with it," said senior Benny Flynn who ended the match with seven blocks and eight kills.

U of L fell behind 6-1 early in the second set but used a 9-2 run to go up 10-8. Notre Dame came as close as one at 15-14 on a Lena Ustymenko miss. The Cardinals held tight and built the lead back to six at 23-17 on three straight Ana Yartseva kills which forced a UND timeout. The Irish would score only four points after that with a Bing Sun kill taking U of L to game point. A Yartseva kill gave the Cards a two-game lead going into the break. U of L had five blocks in the set led by Benny Flynn's four. The Cardinals outhit the Irish .500 to .140.

"We wanted to prove we can play well enough to play to keep advancing in the national championship tournament," said Ustymenko.

U of L hit .250 in the final match to Notre Dame's .117 to roll to the win.

"I think we had more variety of shots and used more hitters and tonight we were the better team. We did what we had to do to win," said Yelin.

The Cardinals were able to mix up their offense well with five hitters swinging effectively. Ustymenko notched 16 kills with Sun and Yartseva adding nine and seven respectively. Jennifer Craven had a career high 23 digs.

Notre Dame was led by Lauren Brewster who had 16 kills and two aces to lead the Irish. Lauren Keibly had 11 kills and four blocks.

"Not just as an senior but as an outside hitter, we know our responsibility is to put the ball down," said Percan. "It started good for me in the first game and not letting my team down has been my primary goal all week."

The Cardinals will play the winner of the Illinois/Murray State match Saturday at 8 p.m. ET. U of L has many close ties with the Illini. U of I head coach Don Hardin coached U of L for eight years and assistant coach Anne Kordes was a setter for Coach Yelin.

"We saw Murray State earlier this season up at Michigan in a tournament. They have one of the best setters I have seen this year," said Yelin. "I have not had time to study Illinois. I had to concentrate on preparing for Notre Dame. I finally took a little five minute peek at the Illinois tape just out of curiosity without studying them. We will scout them tonight and work on our preparation from now until game time tomorrow."