Colorado State University Athletics
Volleyball Upset By Purdue
12/2/2004 12:00:00 AM | Volleyball
In the First Round of the NCAA Tournament, the ninth-ranked Colorado State Rams were upset by Purdue (17-14) in five-games, 30-25, 25-30, 30-27, 22-30, 15-12 to end their season at 26-4. In the Second Round match tomorrow evening, the Boilermakers will square off with #2 Hawai?i, which defeated Colorado in four earlier this evening.
Colorado State was led by a trio with 17 kills in senior outside hitter Becky Sarauer, junior right-side hitter Dre Downs and junior outside hitter Tess Rogers. Senior middle blocker Bri Frech added 13 kills, while senior middle blocker Katie Jo Shirley-Cahoon chipped in 12. Downs also led the team with a .467 hitting percentage and the 17 kills notched a season-high and tied her career high. Sophomore libero Kristen Karlik led the Rams with 15 digs, while senior setter Melissa Courtney tallied 14, Frech added 13 and sophomore defensive specialist Katherine Whitney totaled 11. Both Frech and Cahoon led the Rams with four blocks each.
Courtney ends her career tied for the school record in service aces after notching two on the night. She ends her time with the Rams with 138, tying Angela Knopf (1998-2001).
?One match like this does not define us as a team,? said Colorado State head coach Tom Hilbert. ?We saw them as fighters. This team has fought all year long and I am proud to be associated with them. If I could do it again, I would change the blocking schemes to revolve around the setter. We should have been more obsessed with her -- she was the best hitter on the team. Jacques surprised us too.?
Purdue was led by senior middle blocker Kim McConaha with 15 kills, while sophomore right-side hitter Melanie Ukovich added 14, junior outside hitter Leah Wischmeier tallied 13 and junior setter Renata Dargen, freshman outside hitter Samantha Mader and freshman middle blocker Elizabeth Jacques each chipped in 12 kills. Senior libero Daren Poe led the match with 21 digs, while junior defensive specialist Lauren Berg added 19 and both McConaha and sophomore defensive specialist Brittani Dildine added 13 each. McConaha also led the match with seven blocks and Ukovich had two aces.
?Purdue played an outstanding match,? continued Hilbert. ?It is just a testament to how they have played in their conference.?
?I feel badly for this team (Colorado State), and hardly ever do I feel sorry for a team,? said Purdue Head Coach Dave Shondell. ?They are great players with a great staff. I think that they were a team with a purpose and it?s a shame that they had to lose this way. On the other hand I am glad to be playing tomorrow night against Hawai?i.?
Colorado State ends its season 26-4, while Purdue will play Hawaii tomorrow evening at 7:00 p.m. in Moby Arena for the right to play in the regional semifinals in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
PURDUE QUOTES
Purdue Head Coach Dave Shondell
First of all we are just thrilled to be here in this tournament. It?s been a long time for Purdue volleyball. Our kids were confidant when they came here that we could beat CUS. When we got into the tournament and found out our match up I hadn?t heard a whole lot about CSU. The first tape I watched was of them blowing out Utah. I thought wow don?t know we?re going to match up with them. But the more and more we watched the tape we felt like there were things that we could do to beat them.
I feel badly for this team, and hardly ever do I feel sorry for a team. They are great players with a great staff. I think that they were a team with a purpose and it?s a shame that they had to lose this way.
On the other hand I am glad to be playing tomorrow night against Hawaii.
How he kept the teams focus in the last match:
I told them that we couldn?t dream to be in a better situation. I said that if we make them feel pressured at home then we would have a great chance. All you have to do is be relaxed and play. This was probably not CSU best match. They played well, but we put them in a situation where they had to think about losing, and that made us better off.
On playing Hawaii:
It beats playing them on their court. But we haven?t even thought about them, we?ve been focusing on CSU.
Kim McConaha: senior, middle blocker
After game one we knew that we could beat this team. They were great competition. But being that we are in one of the best volleyball conferences in the nation we knew we had to pick ourselves up after we got down a little and be successful.
On the play of Dargon (setter)
It helps having a setter as tall as she is and as aggressive as she is. When she jumps, they jump with her, and that leaves a lot of opportunities for us.
Renata Dargon: junior, setter
Our coaches do a great job of mixing up the serve. I felt like they matched up pretty well with us. They did a great job competing.
On playing Hawaii:
I?m excited. Growing up you hear about them so much, and now we have a great opportunity. The match tonight is done and over with and we are focused on them now.
On dumping the ball:
I was surprised. I didn?t think that I was going to to have the wide opening in the middle of the court. But then I figured that is where I could score the most. They picked up on it late, but it fell for me quite a bit tonight.
Colorado State Quotes:
Head Coach Tom Hilbert:
?Purdue played an outstanding match. It is just a testament to how they have played in their conference. They were not intimidated by us.?
?We were not blocking with real good fundamentals but we did out hit them for the match.?
?They out blocked us in the game. We didn?t get that. It is disappointing.?
?One match like this does not define us as a bad team. We saw them as fighters. This team has fought all year long and I am proud to be associated with them.?
?They did short three set to Jacques and it was more effective that we thought it would be. She was hitting different angles than we thought.?
?If I could do it again, I would change the blocking schemes to revolve around the setter. We should have been more obsessed with her ? she was the best hitter on the team. Jacques surprised us too. Those two players surprised us.?
?They had good solid blocks and hit in the right seams. We just didn?t block the ball real well.?
?The three point run is big. In game 2 I bet they didn?t even score two serving points. It was a great game.?
?We were not overlooking Purdue. Purdue is a good team and because of the conference they are in, they are one of the best teams. They have beat some good teams. They were still better than we thought they?d be.?
Melissa Courtney Senior setter
?We came out energetic and ready to go. They did some things in game 1 that surprised us.?
?We played a good team.?
Dre Downs Junior right side hitter
?We didn?t expect the setter to dump as much as she did and it threw us off. ?
?They are a scrappy team and we didn?t expect that.?
Volleyball Box Score Colorado State Volleyball Purdue vs #9 Colorado State (Dec 02, 2004 at Fort Collins, Colo.) Purdue | ATTACK |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF| BLOCK |GEN ## Name GP| K E TA PCT| A| SA SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE|POINTS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1 Dargan, Renata...... 5| 12 2 27 .370| 59| 0 2| 0| 8| 1 4 2| 1| 15.0 9 Ukovich, Melanie.... 5| 14 7 30 .233| 1| 2 1| 0| 3| 1 5 1| 0| 19.5 10 McConaha, Kim....... 5| 15 7 39 .205| 5| 0 0| 1| 13| 0 7 0| 0| 18.5 13 Wischmeier, Leah.... 5| 13 4 32 .281| 0| 0 0| 0| 3| 0 1 1| 0| 13.5 14 Dildine, Brittany... 5| 1 1 3 .000| 2| 1 1| 1| 13| 0 0 0| 0| 2.0 17 Mader, Samantha..... 5| 12 4 38 .211| 0| 1 2| 0| 4| 0 1 0| 0| 13.5 2 Berg, Lauren........ 5| 0 0 0 .000| 6| 0 0| 1| 19| 0 0 0| 0| 0.0 7 Cappa, Kim.......... 1| 0 0 0 .000| 0| 0 0| 0| 0| 0 0 0| 0| 0.0 8 Poe, Daren.......... 5| 0 0 0 .000| 3| 0 1| 0| 21| 0 0 0| 0| 0.0 18 Jacques, Elizabeth.. 5| 12 5 23 .304| 0| 0 0| 0| 1| 0 4 0| 0| 14.0 TEAM................ | | | | 2| | | | 0.0 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Totals.............. 5| 79 30 192 .255| 76| 4 7| 5| 85| 2 22 4| 1| 96.0 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 13.0 Game K E TA Pct 1 18 8 40 .250 GAME SCORES 1 2 3 4 5 TEAM RECORDS 2 22 7 48 .312 Purdue.............. (3) 30 25 30 22 15 17-14 3 15 4 39 .282 Colorado State...... (2) 25 30 27 30 12 26-4 4 13 8 41 .122 5 11 3 24 .333 Colorado State | ATTACK |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF| BLOCK |GEN ## Name GP| K E TA PCT| A| SA SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE|POINTS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1 WHITNEY, Katherine.. 5| 1 0 2 .500| 5| 1 1| 0| 11| 0 0 0| 0| 2.0 4 ROGERS, Tess........ 5| 17 6 41 .268| 0| 0 0| 0| 3| 0 2 1| 0| 18.0 9 COURTNEY, Melissa... 5| 4 1 11 .273| 65| 2 4| 0| 14| 0 1 0| 0| 6.5 10 SARAUER, Becky...... 5| 17 11 52 .115| 0| 0 1| 0| 9| 0 2 0| 0| 18.0 11 SHIRLEY-CAHOON,Katie 5| 12 3 40 .225| 2| 0 1| 1| 9| 1 3 0| 0| 14.5 15 FRECH, Bri.......... 5| 13 2 24 .458| 0| 1 2| 1| 13| 1 3 0| 0| 16.5 5 FOYTICH, Kimi....... 1| 0 0 0 .000| 0| 0 0| 0| 0| 0 0 0| 0| 0.0 8 BAUER, Casey........ 1| 0 1 3 -.333| 0| 0 0| 0| 0| 1 0 0| 0| 1.0 16 KARLIK, Kristen..... 5| 0 0 0 .000| 0| 1 1| 1| 15| 0 0 0| 0| 1.0 17 DOWNS, Dre.......... 5| 17 3 30 .467| 1| 0 0| 0| 1| 0 1 0| 0| 17.5 TEAM................ | | | | 1| | | | 0.0 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Totals.............. 5| 81 27 203 .266| 73| 5 10| 4| 75| 3 12 1| 0| 95.0 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 9.0 Game K E TA Pct 1 14 8 43 .140 Site: Fort Collins, Colo. (Moby Arena) 2 19 1 39 .462 Date: Dec 02, 2004 Attend: 2720 Time: 2:21 3 20 10 50 .200 Referees: Joan Powell, Gary Houghton 4 19 6 46 .283 game02 5 9 2 25 .280
