CHICAGO (October 31, 2009) – The Rutgers volleyball team celebrated Halloween by snapping its five-match skid Saturday afternoon notching a 3-1 dominating win against DePaul at the McGrath Arena in Chicago.
The Scarlet Knights (9-15, 2-7 BIG EAST) defeated the Blue Demons (6-18, 0-9 BIG EAST) by scores of 25-18, 25-19, 23-25, 25-13. DPU has now lost 12 straight matches. DePaul still leads the all-time series with Rutgers by a 4-3 advantage.
The Scarlet Knights posted their second-highest attacked percentage of the season with .274 compared to the Blue Demon’s attack percentage of 0.90.
“I think we came out and played our style of volleyball by serving and passing well,” said Rutgers head coach
CJ Werneke. “We did some nice things in transition that we worked on during the week. When things didn’t go our way, we did a good job of rebounding and competing at a high level.”
Three Scarlet Knights posted double-digit kills with junior outside hitter Caitlin Saxton (Encinitas, Calif.) leading the way with a match-high 13. Saxton has scored 10-plus kills in 18 of RU’s 24 matches this season.
Sophomore middle blocker Hannah Curtis (Wasilla, Alaska) swatted 11 kills on a .300 attack percentage.
Junior outside hitter Katie Groff (York, Pa.) saw her most significant action of the season as she posted a season-high 10 kills.
Junior outside hitter Emma Chrystal (Kalamazoo, Mich.) put together another strong all-around performance with nine kills, three service aces, five digs and three assists.
Sophomore setter Kallie Pence (College Station, Texas) dished out a match-high 27 assists for her fifth 20-plus assists match of the season.
Senior libero Jamie Godfrey (Rahway, N.J.) scooped 12 digs to move into ninth place on the school’s all-time career digs list with 857. Godfrey passed former Scarlet Knight Mara Prisditis (1994-97) who racked up 847 digs during her career. Godfrey’s 342 digs this season ranks seventh on Rutgers’ all-time single-season list.
.
Freshman outside hitter Chandler Carney highlighted the match for the Blue Demons with 13 kills.
Rutgers will have little time to celebrate the victory as the squad left DePaul to travel to Notre Dame. The Scarlet Knights will battle the Irish on Sunday at 1 p.m. ND owns a perfect 9-0 record in conference play. Notre Dame defeated Seton Hall Saturday afternoon by a 3-1 mark.
“As a staff, we feel like we played pretty well today and we will take our momentum into tomorrow’s match against Notre Dame,” said Werneke. “We know they have the best record in the conference but we never back down from a challenge. We can only control how we play and we will go out and compete hard against them tomorrow.”
