Aces look for 6th consecutive Valley win
 EVANSVILLE, Ind. – With its first 5-match Missouri Valley Conference win streak secured, the University of Evansville volleyball team looks to add one more to that tally on Saturday when the Purple Aces welcome Indiana State for a 1 p.m. match at Meeks Family Fieldhouse.
Last Time Out
– Trailing by a score of 10-5 in the fifth set at Drake, the Aces staged a rally for the ages, scoring 10 of the final 12 points to clinch its first-ever 5-match MVC win streak
– Taya Haffner set her career mark with 50 assists while Giulia Cardona and Alondra Vazquez recorded 21 kills apiece
– Cecilia Thon played a huge role in the final rally, picking up two service aces
First Time For Everything
– On Oct. 15, the Purple Aces earned their first-ever road win over UNI by taking a 3-1 victory…it also marked just the third victory over the Panthers in 57 tries
– UE has now won five MVC matches in a row for the first time since joining the league in 1994
Rare MVC Feat
– On Monday, Giulia Cardona was named the MVC Player and Freshman of the Week after leading UE to road wins at UNI and Drake
– She became the first player to earn both honors in the same week since Abbie Lehman of Wichita State in 2014
– In Evansville’s three wins last week, Cardona racked up 4.75 kills and 19.2 digs per set while hitting .301
– The freshman recognition marked her second in a row after winning it on Oct. 11 with her efforts in wins over Illinois State and Bradley
– Over the course of UE’s 5-match win streak, Cardona has averaged 4.78 kills while hitting .342…she has also added 2.06 digs/set and 0.44 service aces
Highest Efficiency
– Entering the October 23 match against Indiana State, the Aces are hitting .260 on the season, which is on pace to smash the school record
– Since 1991, the highest mark has been .219 in 1998 and just six times UE has hit .200 or above, just one since 2001
Business as Usual
– Consistently one of the nation’s top players every time the Aces take the floor, Alondra Vazquez has notched at least nine kills in every match of the fall
– She remains on top of the MVC list with 4.40 kills/set while pacing the league in points (5.17/set) and aces (0.49/set)…defensively, Vazquez leads her squad with 3.13 digs per frame, 10th in the Valley
– Nationally, Vazquez is 20th in kill average, 22nd in aces per set and 27th with her service ace average
Serving up some Aces
– As a team, the Purple Aces have accumulated an average of 2.02 service aces per set, which is best in the Valley and 8th nationally
– Evansville is a perfect 15-0 on the season and 5-0 in the MVC when recording more service aces than the opposition
– The average for UE is on pace to be one of the top three on record (since 1991) with the top marks being 2.47 in 1991, 2.22 and 2.01 in 1996…UE has not averaged more than two aces per set since 1996
– Two of the heroes of the weekend Iowa sweep were Laura Ruiz and Cecilia Thon who made an extreme difference with their serving
– In the Oct. 15 win at UNI, Laura Ruiz picked up three aces in a 3-1 road victory over the Panthers…her ace in the third set was the decisive point in a 29-27 win that gave UE a 2-1 lead in the match
– It was Cecilia Thon’s turn in Des Moines where her serving anchored Evansville’s rally in the fifth set…Thon took over serving with the Aces trailing 11-8 and by the time she was finished – her team scored five in a row to go up 13-11, which included two service aces
