WESTERN CAROLINA BOX SCORE
ILLINOIS STATE BOX SCORE
NORMAL, Ill. -- Jillian Mitchell was named most valuable player and Jaime Gotham and Caitlin Strimel joined her on the all-tournament team as Western Michigan won the Redbird Classic with wins over Western Carolina and host Illinois State on Saturday at Redbird Arena.
The Broncos moved to 5-0 for the first time since 1996.
Gotham and Allyson Doyle led Western Michigan in the championship match against Illinois State (4-3) with 12 kills each in the Broncos' first four-set match of the season (27-25, 25-14, 17-25, 25-17).
Michelle Moore, Ashley Vogl and Katie Eberling all added nine kills each for the Brown & Gold. With 20 combined kills in each of Saturday's two matches, Moore became the 16th player in school history to notch 1,000 career kills with 1,010. Jillian Mitchell passed out a season-high 46 assists and finished the tournament with 11.60 assists per set. Caitlin Strimel finished with 20 digs to lead the Broncos.
The Broncos opened the first set with the first three points and eventually built a 15-9 lead after back-to-back Redbird errors sandwiched around an ISU timeout. The Redbirds fought back and evened the score at 23 after an ace, but then gave back the lead on a service error on the next point. WMU couldn't take advantage of its first set point and actually lost the next points to give ISU set point at 25-24. The Broncos answered with a block from Vogl and Mitchell and two ISU attack errors to win the first set.
The second set was back-and-forth to start, but a three-point run broke a five-all tie to give WMU the advantage. Leading by just one, 13-12, the Broncos went on a 7-0 run with Eberling at the service line to take command. Vogl, Moore and Doyle all had kills and Eberling added an ace during the run that ISU couldn't recover from.
Illinois State jumped out to a 10-6 advantage in the third set and the Broncos were unable to recover. The Redbirds had their best set of the match hitting .333 with 16 kills, while WMU had only 11 kills and hit .146.
The set three win by Illinois State forced the Broncos to play a fourth set for the first time in 2008 and they were more than open to the challenge. The Broncos stormed out to a 9-3 lead behind two kills, one block assist and one assist from sophomore Kate Corbett off the bench. Illinois State came back and cut the lead to two points on three occasions, the final time at 14-12, but WMU scored five of the next six points to take a 19-13 edge.
ISU cut the lead to four, 20-16, but Eberling had a kill and Gotham followed with a pair of kills to push the lead to 23-16 and the Broncos had the 2008 Redbird Classic championship.
Katie Eberling led Western Michigan with 13 kills and Michelle Moore finished with 11 kills to become only the 16th Bronco in school history with 1,000 career kills in a 25-12, 25-15, 25-14 victory over Western Carolina on Saturday morning at the Redbird Classic. The win was the fourth straight to start the season and fourth-straight 3-0 triumph. The last time WMU won four straight to start the season was 1996, and all those matches were 3-0.
Moore now has 1,001 career kills in 79 career matches and 262 career games for 3.82 kills per game, which is currently a school record.
"Today we were much more aggressive and came out stronger as a team," head coach Colleen Munson said. "This was a really nice win because we controlled the tempo and we controlled the pace and that allowed us to stay in the driver's seat the entire match."
Sophomore Jaime Gotham added 11 kills hitting .611, while junior Jillian Mitchell passed out 31 assists as WMU hit .370 as a team, its highest mark of the season.
Defensively, the Broncos (4-0) had 42 digs and didn't allow an ace by the Catamounts (0-6). Junior Caitlin Strimel led the way with 12 digs, while Moore and sophomore Allyson Doyle each had seven in holding WCU to a .062 attack percentage.
WMU never trailed in taking just 61 minutes to defeat Western Carolina. The Broncos opened the match with a kill and service ace by Mitchell and didn't look back. Gotham helped finish off WCU in the first set with three consecutive aces to finish out a 10-2 set-opening run. Gotham finished the match with a career-high four aces. Back-to-back kills by Vogl, followed by back-to-back spikes from Eberling helped finish the first set, 25-12.
The Broncos scored the first five points of set two with a pair of Gotham kills and one from Eberling. The Catamounts closed to within three, 14-11, but WMU responded with a 5-0 run behind three straight Gotham kills and a Strimel ace to push the lead to eight, 19-11. Gotham notched her fourth ace to put WMU one point away from the set and senior Ashley Vogl and sophomore Kate Corbett finished it with the Broncos' lone block of the match.
Set three started with an 8-3 Bronco run that forced Western Carolina to burn a timeout. WCU regrouped and pulled within one, 8-7, but a 7-1 run reestablished a comfortable lead for the Broncos as they went on to win their first third set of the season without having to comeback from an early deficit.
The Broncos continue their non-conference swing in Winston-Salem, N.C., next weekend at the Black & Gold Challenge hosted by Wake Forest. WMU will be joined by 2007 NCAA Tournament participant Delaware and Munson's old school, East Carolina in the event.
