Aces host three home matches in four days
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EVANSVILLE, Ind. – One of the biggest weekends in the history of the University of Evansville volleyball program is on tap as the Purple Aces prepare for three matches in four nights. The stretch begins on Friday against Valparaiso before UE welcomes Loyola on Saturday and Southern Illinois on Monday.
Last Time Out
– Back home for a single match against Indiana State, Evansville rolled to another 3-0 home victory on Saturday
– Giulia Cardona accumulated 17 kills and a career-best 7 service aces…she became the first UE player to record 7 aces since Anne Teegardin had 7 versus the Sycamores in 2006
– Melanie Feliciano added 14 kills while Taya Haffner picked up 38 assists in the win
Inside the Streak
– With the win over Indiana State, the Aces pushed their current MVC win streak to six games, extending the longest streak since joining the league in 1994
– Prior to this season, the longest conference win streak was four matches in 1998
– By winning six of its first nine MVC matches, the Aces match their best league start, which has been achieved twice before – 1998 and 2000…UE has never started 7-3 in the MVC
– Overall, the Aces are 16-4, which matches the 2010 squad for the second-best start in the history of the program…the top streak to open a season belongs to the 1981 squad, who opened the year at 22-1 before finishing the year with a 39-10 mark
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Home Sweet Home
– It would be hard to think of a better start to the home slate for UE – through six matches, the Aces are a perfect 6-0 and have won each contest by a 3-0 final
– The 6-0 record is tied for the second-best home start for the program, which also won its first six matches inside Meeks Family Fieldhouse in 2019
– Evansville’s longest undefeated home stretch to begin a season was 8-0 in 1981
Aces Aces
– Ten more aces were added to Evansville’s season tally on Saturday against Indiana State, improving the season average to 2.07 per set, which is 6th in the country
– Seven of those came off the arm of freshman Giulia Cardona, marking her career high…she was the first MVC player to have 7 aces in a match since 2019 and the first since 2009 to do so against a league foe and it was the first instance of 7 aces in 3 sets versus an MVC squad since 2007
– Cardona paces the MVC with 0.50 aces per frame and sits 16th in the nation and second among freshmen in that category
3-for-3
– Giulia Cardona made it a perfect 3-for-3 on Monday, earning her third consecutive MVC Freshman of the Week award
– The last MVC player to win three freshman awards in a row was Illinois State’s Stef Jankiewicz in 2017
– On October 18, Cardona was named both the MVC Player and Freshman of the Week becoming the first player to earn both honors in the same week since Abbie Lehman of Wichita State in 2014
– Cardona has taken her performance to a new level over the recent 6-match win streak, averaging 4.90 kills, 0.71 aces and a hit tally of .347
– Her latest MVC accolade comes after a 17-kill, 7-ace contest against Indiana State…she accumulated 24.0 points in 3 sets
Top 10
– With a total of 1,216 kills in her career, Alondra Vazquez has moved into the Aces career top 10 list…she passed Laura Seib’s total of 1,215 to move into the 10th spot
– She also jumped into the top ten in career digs at UE as her total of 1,140 moved her onto the list, passing Erica Haukap’s tally of 1,137
