Chippewa Volleyball Drops First Match

Saturday, September 7

Mount Pleasant, MI

3:30 p.m.

Central Michigan University

10-2

UIC

11-3

UIC

Central Mich.

Photo by: Allissa Rusco

9/7/2019 8:06:00 PM | Volleyball

Box Score Photo Gallery

CMU falls to UIC in Chippewa Invitational finale

By: Nick Vuylsteke, CMUChippewas.com

MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. -- The Central Michigan volleyball team dropped its final game of the Chippewa Invitational when it fell to Illinois-Chicago on Saturday, 27-25, 25-15, 25-16, at McGuirk Arena.

It was the first loss of the season for the Chippewas, 5-1, who opened the tournament on Friday with wins over Eastern Illinois and North Dakota State.

How It Happened
CMU opened an 11-5 lead in the first set. The Flames responded, won the set, and rode the momentum to a straight-sets win.

"I don't think today was our best day," CMU coach Mike Gawlik said. "I think we started off pretty well, but I thought we took our foot off the gas pedal a little bit. Being aggressive was scoring us points and got us off to an early lead.

"I think we just allowed them to claw their way back into the first set. That [set] was back and forth, it didn't go our way, but I thought we outplayed [UIC] for a majority of that set, just to have them snatch it from us."

Gawlik said we would have liked to see his team be more aggressive because in volleyball, a team must score 25 points to win the set, as opposed to other sports, in which a team can simply run out the clock.

"I would have loved to see us be a little more aggressive," Gawlik said. "Teams sometimes can get caught looking at the scoreboard. Although we opened up an early lead, we got a little tentative with scoreboard watching, hoping that it would be enough to win set one instead of making sure we were aggressive."

Leaders
Kalina Smith had eight kills to lead CMU, while Kendall Braate posted 25 assists, Meg Kern had 13 digs, and Megan Sivertsen led the Chippewas with a .556 hitting percentage (five kills in nine attempts).

CMU junior middle blocker Lisbeth Rosario-Martinez was named to the all-tournament team. She finished with 23 kills and a .307 hitting percentage. She also had 10 digs and three aces.

Next
CMU will travel to Chicago to compete in the DePaul Invitational next weekend. CMU will compete against DePaul on Friday, Sept. 13 (8 p.m.). and will play a double header on Saturday, Sept. 14 against Valparaiso (11 a.m.) and Holy Cross (5:30 p.m.).