Miami University
St. John's University
RedHawks Open Best Western Invitational with Victory
9/11/2009 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
Sept. 11, 2009
OXFORD, Ohio - Playing in front of the first home crowd of the season, Miami gave the fans a lot to cheer about with a 3-0 victory over the defending BIG EAST champion St. John Red Storm Friday night in the second match of the Miami Best Western Sycamore Inn Invitational. The RedHawks improve to 2-5, while St. John's is now 4-5.
The visitors took the first point of the opening set and jumped out to a 4-3 lead. Miami quickly erased the deficit and took a 9-4 lead on serves by Michele Metzler. St. John's battled back to re-tie the game at 15 and hung with the RedHawks, matching them point-for-point until the Red and White put together a five-point run to take a 24-20 lead. The Red Storm again cut into the lead, turning away three set points to make it 23-24, but recorded an attack error to give Miami a 25-23 victory.
Miami fell behind 2-1 to open the second set, but quickly went on an 8-1 run thanks to two kills and two blocks from Megan Griffin, a kill, a block and three assists from Andrea Atteberry and two kills from Maria Leahy to take a 9-3 lead. St. John's put together a rally to cut Miami's lead to 16-13 but couldn't pull any closer than three. With a 21-18 lead and Metzler serving, the RedHawks took control, scoring four straight points, including the set-winning block by Griffin and Amy Raseman.
St. John's struck first in the third set to take a 1-0 lead, but from there it was all RedHawks. Hallie Hanks served four points in a row including an ace to give Miami a 5-1 lead. Another run by the Red and White, highlighted by two kills and a block by Metzler, pushed the score to 12-4. St. John's was able to cut into the lead to make it 12-6, but Miami scored 13 of the next 22 points to win the set 25-15 on a Raseman kill.
Griffin led the RedHawks with 11 kills and seven digs with an attack percentage of .600. Atteberry had 30 assists and Colleen Loftus added 11 digs. Overall, the team hit .363 while holding St. John's to .090.
"The team played very inspired tonight for two reasons," head coach Carolyn Condit said. "First, they were very happy to be at home. The crowd was good to us and we had a great turnout. Second was we struggled a little the last few games and today it all came together for us. And again, there's no better place to do it than at home."
Earlier in the day, in the first match of the tournament, Pacific defeated Troy in four sets.
The RedHawks will meet Troy at 9:30 Saturday morning at Millett Hall for game three of the Best Western Sycamore Inn Invitational.
