Sept. 20, 2003

Box Score

CHICAGO-In Saturday's first game at the DePaul Invitational, Miami University's volleyball team (5-8) fell in three games to Tennessee (9-2), 17-30, 27-30, 22-30.

A kill by freshman middle hitter Jordan Centers pulled Miami within one in the first game, 11-12. Tennessee, however, built its lead to six off a barrage of kills, 17-11. The Lady Volunteers continued to pull away and went on a nine-point scoring run to end the game in their favor, 30-17.

The teams went back and forth through the early stages of the second game until Tennessee built a five-point lead, 18-13, with help from three RedHawk attack errors and a service error. Tennessee eventually cushioned its lead to six, 20-14, but a kill by junior outside hitter Tara Buroker, a big block by junior outside hitter Angie Zent and redshirt freshman middle hitter Lauren Slusser and three devastating kills on the slide attack by Slusser shrunk the gap to two, 19-21. Respective kills from Centers and Zent and block by Centers and sophomore outside hitter Kristen Walters evaporated the Lady Vol lead, knotting the game, 22-22. After trailing by two, another Buroker kill and a Centers service ace again tied the game, 25-25. That was as close as Miami would get as the Lady Vols went on to take the second game, 30-27.

Trailing 3-5 in the early stages of the third game, Slusser ignited an 8-0 RedHawk run with a kill. Miami surged to an 11-5 lead and eventually built its lead to seven, 14-7. Tennessee chipped away at the RedHawk lead and put together a 4-0 spurt to post a 20-18 advantage. Tennessee outscored Miami 10-4 down the stretch and went on to take the third game 30-22.

For Miami, Slusser tallied a match-high-tying 12 kills, while Buroker added 11 kills and 10 digs. Walters added 10 digs, while Centers posted two service aces and a team-best four blocks.

Miami rounds out its stint at the DePaul Invitational at 5 p.m. (CT) on Saturday (Sept. 20) against IUPUI.