St. Louis, Mo. – The UIC volleyball team (0-3, 0-0 MVC) battled Saint Louis (2-0, 0-0 A) in a five-set thriller Saturday afternoon, falling short 3-2 to conclude their weekend at the Chaifetz Pavilion.
Sophomore
Ana Petrides was efficient on the attack, tallying a career-high 14 kills with an impressive .619 hitting percentage. Senior
Mihaela Harizanova orchestrated the offense with 35 assists, setting up numerous scoring opportunities. Junior
Jillian Gibbons led the defensive effort with seven total blocks and sophomore
Ava Young anchored the back row with 19 digs.
Each team traded point-for-point in the first set, as the Flames were led on the attack by Gibbons, sophomore
Emma Colombari and senior
Tamara Kisic. After a service ace from freshman
Paulina Ströh tied it up at 18, the Bilikens managed to capitalize on attack errors to later secure set point.
Keeping it close once again in the second set, the Flames managed to go a six-point rally highlighted by a service ace from Kisic to push it to set point, 24-19. The Flames secured the second set a few points later when an attack attempt from Saint Louis' Tea Kalajdzic was stuffed by a tandem block with Gibbons and freshman
Elizabeth King. UIC finished the set with a 25-22 victory.
The Billikens took an early lead midway through the third set before UIC began to rally back from seven-point deficit. Highlighted by kills from Kisic Petrides and senior
Gabi Peter, the Flames would outscore the Billikens 11-5 to cut it to a 23-22 deficit, before Saint Louis' Ellie Rink secured the set point with back-to-back kills.
The Flames kept fighting, capitalizing on numerous attack errors in the fourth set, capping off with Colombari collecting a pair of kills to keep UIC ahead, 19-11. After a Saint Louis service error led to UIC reaching set point, Peter tied it up 2-2 for UIC with a set-ending service ace.
UIC were off to a hot start entering the fifth and final set, with Petrides collecting her 14
th and final kill of the match to keep the Flames ahead, 10-5. The Billikens managed to go on a 7-2 run to tie it up 12 a piece later in the set. UIC's final point of the match would come a few serves later from a Peter kill, before Saint Louis would secure their win the very next point.
The entire play-by-play and box score can be found
here.
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UP NEXT!
The Flames stay on the road next weekend at St. Thomas' Tommies Invitational. UIC opens play Thursday with a noon CT first serve against Milwaukee (
0-2, 0-0 Horizon) at Schoenecker Arena. Live stats of the match will be available at UICFlames.com.
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