5-foot-3 Aldrete leads Irish to win
NOAH AMSTADTER
Sports Editor
With the help of a 5-foot-3 middle blocker, the Notre Dame women's volleyball team stopped a late game three rally to sweep Rutgers Sunday afternoon (30-22, 30-23, 33-31).
The match marked the second Big East win of the weekend for the Irish (12-3, 7-0 in the Big East) after they topped the Wildcats of Villanova on Friday evening.
With the Irish up 28-24 in game three, Irish head coach Debbie Brown used up her final substitution to put in 5-foot-3 junior Janie Aldrete to serve. Mary Kiriakou recorded a kill on that point for the Scarlet Knights.
After a Kim Fletcher kill gave the Irish a 29-25 lead and game point, the Scarlet Knights reeled off five consecutive points to reach game point themselves with a 30-29 lead.
A kill by Fletcher and an ace serve from Marcie Bomhack put the Irish up 31-30 before another Kiriakou kill tied the game at 31. Then Fletcher took over.
Fletcher scored a kill to give the Irish a 32-31 lead. Then, with Aldrete stationed at the middle blocker position, Fletcher served an ace to give Notre Dame a hard fought 33-31 victory.
"You figure with the score what it was, we definitely should have been able to score points and side out to finish the game," Brown said. "When it got to a point when I realized that Janie was going to end up in the front row I immediately thought, `What are we going to do? Who's going to go where and what are we going to do to get out of the rally.'"
As pleased as Brown was with her team's poise under pressure against a Scarlet Knights team that came into the Joyce Center as the only other undefeated team in Big East play, she was disappointed in the defensive breakdown at the end of the game.
"We talked before this match about how we need to be able to close a match and a game out," Brown said. "It was disappointing that we didn't do that in the way it should have been done."
Big East Preseason player of the year Kristy Kreher led the Irish with 17 kills and five blocks. Kreher committed only two hitting errors to finish with a .577 hitting percentage on the day.
"She's getting really good swings," Brown said.
Fletcher was consistent for the Irish before her late-match heroics. The sophomore finished with 14 kills and posted a .478 hitting percentage. She added three blocks.
"She's been very consistent in practice, very consistent in her hitting and her blocking," Brown said. "Early in the season, she wasn't blocking as well but now I think she's in a good rhythm and doing a really good job with it."
Notre Dame took a commanding 10-3 lead to open the first game of the match.
Solid hitting and blocking by Kreher and Fletcher helped the Irish build that lead to 20-10. Rutgers closed the game to 26-20, but could pull no closer as Aldrete served an ace to give the Irish the game.
In game two, the teams played back and forth early. The score was knotted at 11 until a Kreher kill put the Irish up by one. Then, with Aldrete serving, the Irish reeled off four consecutive points to go up 16-11.
Rutgers came back within three points at 21-18 On a streak started by a long Rutgers serve and a Jessica Kinder serving ace, the Irish posted a three and a four-point run and sealed the game on a Fletcher kill.
Kinder, who had played sparingly before this weekend, totaled three service aces Sunday.
Bomhack led the way as Notre Dame swept Villanova (30-19, 30-20, 30-21) on Friday night. Bomhack had a season-high 12 kills and assisted on two of Notre Dame's nine blocks.
Malinda Goralski added 10 kills as the Irish posted a .322 hitting percentage. Jessica Kinder posted five service aces in the first match in which she saw significant playing time this season.
"We're just trying to find a way to balance it so that we can use Jessica's serve and defense a little bit more," Brown said. "She responded very, very well both against Villanova and Rutgers."
All Sports Stories for Monday, October 15, 2001
