Tuesday, November 09, 2004

In the first game, East Tennessee jumped out to an early lead and maintained it through the game. The Mountaineers hit a mere .096 while the Lady Bucs finished with a .316 hitting percentage.

Appalachian came out firing in game two, jumping to a seven point lead which they maintained until the Lady Bucs cut it to five at 27-22. ASU finished out game two with a three-point run to win 30-25. The Mountaineers hit .372 led by Chrissy Finch with eight kills.

Game three started close as neither team gained an advantage until the game was tied at 21. Appalachian put together a 4-0 run to force an East Tennessee timeout. Kali Rumberger and Samantha Giudici combined for a pair of dramatic digs to seal the 30-25 win. Dianna Thomas killed five balls to lead all hitters in the game.

The Mountaineers hit an impressive .545 as a team in the 30-17 game four victory. ASU came out strong grabbing an early lead and capitalizing in the end. East Tennessee hit their match low .143 in the final game.

Thomas and Amber Mangrum hit .400 each to lead Appalachian. Mangrum had six kills in the match in addition to her 59 assists. She needs just five more to take over first place on the all-time Appalachian career assist list.

For the Lady Bucs, freshman Callie Kiselich (Colorado Springs, Colo.) finished with 18 kills and .615 hitting. Setters Jennifer Sartor (Toronto, Ontario) and Brittany Kessel (Libertyville, Ill.) had 23 and 29 assist respectively. Defensively, senior libero Karen Freeburg (New Castle, Ind.) led ETSU with 18 digs.

Finch added 15 digs to her match high 21 kills in the match. ASU had five players in double figure kills as Thomas finished with 16, Stefanie Panzer added 14, Giudici nailed 11 and Cali Cooper smashed ten. Rumberger had 10 digs on the night.

East Tennessee State concludes their regular season by hosting UNC Greensboro Friday night at 7 p.m. and Elon Saturday afternoon at 12:30 p.m.