Road play continues for the University of Evansville volleyball team as the Purple Aces head to central Illinois to face Illinois State on Friday evening before heading to Bradley on Saturday. Both matches will begin at 7 p.m.
UE played its first three league matches over the last week; the team competed hard in each one, but enters the weekend at 0-3. Highlighting the opening three matches was a 5-set contest at home against Loyola in the opener as Rachel Tam posted 22 kills with Mildrelis Rodriguez finishing with 17.
The start of conference play did not deter the great start to the year for Rachel Tam. In the first three MVC matches, Tam recorded 3.92 kills per frame – including 22 against Loyola; the only difference for Tam has been her hitting percentage, overall, she is hitting .208, but finished at 0.122 in the first three league matches.
Sophomore Allana McInnis has settled in as UE’s top setter and has responded with at least 18 assists in seven of the last eight matches. That included the top match of her college career against Tennessee State, where she had a total of 60 assists in leading UE to a 5-set win; she posted 51 in the MVC opener against Loyola. McInnis continues to play well as a sophomore, notching 6.19 assists per game while recording 16 or more in 11 of the 16 matches; since the NKU match on Sept. 8, she has averaged 7.9 assists per set, a total of 236 over the course of 30 sets.
Illinois State comes into the weekend with a 10-4 overall mark and are 2-0 in the first two league matches with road victories at Missouri State and Southern Illinois. The Redbirds do a nice job of spreading the ball around as six players average between 2 and 3 kills per set; Lexi Varga has the top tally of 2.81; they lead the MVC hitting .246. On defense, Courtney Pence paces the Valley with 5.48 digs per frame.
Bradley has also gotten off to a nice start in 2018, sitting at 12-2 while picking up two road wins in the opening weekend of league play. Erica Haslag is the top offensive player, notching 3.87 kills per set, ranking third in the conference.
