Volleyball: Deep bench sparks Irish in pair of victories
By: MATT LOZAR
Sports Writer
After watching her team blow a 15-6 lead in game one and fall behind big in game two, Irish volleyball coach Debbie Brown had to do something quickly to prevent the Irish from losing their first home Big East match.
Brown worked Kim Fletcher, Kelly Burrell and Meg Henican into the complete rotation and saw her team turn deficits of 20-10 and 29-24 into a 33-31 game two win.
Riding the momentum from game two's impressive comeback, Notre Dame defeated Connecticut 28-30, 33-31, 30-18, 31-29 Friday and two days later, defeated St. John's 30-26, 25-30, 30-20, 31-29.
The Irish's used the energy from game two's comeback as a springboard for the rest of the weekend.
"It was really important to win because you don't want to go down 0-2 and lose the momentum. I think it was huge for us just from a momentum standpoint to take that game," Brown said. "I am really surprised [we won game two]. It is really hard to come back from that big of a deficit with rally scoring, but we played very inspired and put some things together at the end. That game was very critical for us."
For the first time this season, Brown allowed Henican outside of the back row. Henican had been nursing a slight abdominal injury, but with the freshman finally healthy, Brown figured the time was right to unleash the top player of an impressive recruiting class.
"We just haven't had the opportunity to get [Meg] in the front row. I think it was time for us to see what she could do," Brown said. "It was one of those things where you see who is playing well and who isn't, and you need a spark."
Henican took full advantage of her time on the court.
"It was fun," Henican said. "We practice every day for stuff like this. I felt like I was well prepared."
Fletcher, a preseason all-Big East selection, got a kill on her first point and finished with 11 on the match. Meanwhile, Burrell saw her first significant playing time of the season replacing Kristen Kinder at setter. The freshman finished with 35 assists, four digs and five blocks.
"I think with the momentum we built at the end of game two, I thought it was important to keep those guys together [in the rest of the games] since they had a good chemistry out there," Brown said.
The Irish (11-3) dominated the Huskies (4-8) in game three and were cruising in game four before the Huskies battled back. Down 25-14, Connecticut won eight consecutive points and eventually tied Notre Dame at 29. But a Husky error and an Emily Loomis block closed the game and match for the Irish.
Before Sunday's match against St. John's (12-8), Notre Dame had never dropped a game to the Red Storm in seven previous meetings. The Irish took advantage of 22.5 team blocks, 12 from freshman Lauren Kelbley, to overcome their passing difficulties.
"When we were serving, blocking, and playing a lot of defense, we did score a lot of points, but we were giving up a lot when we were receiving serves because we weren't passing very well," Brown said. "We didn't adjust to their servers and gave up several points in a row. That's something we have to do a better job of."
The Red Storm had a 12-8 lead in game three when the Irish took control. Winning 22 of the game's 30 points, including the last seven, gave the Irish game three.
St. John's jumped out to an early 7-1 advantage in game four before Notre Dame used a timeout to regroup. The Irish tied the game at 12 on a Loomis kill and took the lead for good on Kelbley's kill at 19-18. Despite two ugly victories this weekend, the Irish are happy to start Big East action undefeated.
"It wasn't our best weekend," Kinder said. "We struggled a little bit. [Sunday] I thought the energy was better, but we didn't execute well. It's tough because we realize teams want to come in here and knock us off because we are the leaders in the Big East."
All Sports Stories for Monday, September 30, 2002
