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 Megan Smolen tallied 21 kills on 64 attempts. |
Oct. 18, 2003
Detroit - Wayne State pushed 25th-ranked Grand Valley State to a fifth game, but fell 3-2 (30-18, 30-27, 28-30, 24-30, 15-6) to the defending Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference champion. WSU's record drops to 6-14 overall and 2-10 in the GLIAC as the Lakers' mark improves to 19-5, 11-1. It is the Warriors' seventh loss in a five-game match.
For the second match in a row, the Warriors lost the first two games only to charge back in games three and four. In Saturday's third game, WSU trailed 25-22 before Sofi Berczely (Buenos Aires, Argentina/Goethe Schule) served up four points including one of her two aces. The Warriors held on for the 30-28 win.
In the fourth set, Wayne State went on a 9-2 rally, including five straight points with Kristi Pieper (Roseville, Mich./Fraser) serving. The redshirt freshman had four aces in the match to improve her team-leading mark to 27 on the season. A Megan Smolen (Grosse Ile, Mich.) kill sealed the 30-24 victory.
Grand Valley proved to be too much in the final game as it out-hit the Warriors 11 to 2.
Smolen led all hitters with 21 kills, her fifth 20-plus kill performance of the year.
The Warriors won the battle of serving as they had 10 aces to GVSU's three, and only committed seven service errors compared to the Lakers' 16 errors.
Wayne State continues home action against Mercyhurst on Friday, Oct. 24 at 7:00 p.m.
