Ariy-El Boynton

Facing adversity, the SDSU women’s volleyball team responded with strength and beat Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis 27-30, 28-30, 32-30, 30-28, 15-8.

With the win SDSU (13-3,4-0) reached their 11th straight victory, with four wins in a row in Summit League play. The Jackrabbits led the first two games, but could not be victorious in either, and fell 2-0 after the first two games. The seniors especially Kristina Martin led the comeback for the Jackrabbits, who won three straight games for the match victory. Martin on the night hit a .493 killing percentage, she also had a career night 36 kills, which is a SDSU record, since the rally-scoring era (2001).

Martin was named the Summit League Most Valuable Offensive Player after averaging 5.44 kills on the week. Martin also added to the defensive side with 2.788 digs and .44 blocks per game this week.

Fellow senior leader Samantha Pearson notched 37 digs herself, which was also a career high. Her digs were also the top in SDSU for a single player since the rally-scoring era. Martin for her performance the past week earned the Summit League defensive Player of the Week. Pearson is only 41 digs away from breaking the career record at SDSU.

“Tina (Martin) and Sam (Pearson) both had an outstanding weekend,” said SDSU head coach Andrew Palileo. “Their senior leadership came through on Saturday against IUPUI when we needed it the most.”

SDSU used a healthy dose of Melia Iwamoto in the first two games, but could not keep pace with the late surging IUPUI, and lost 27-30, 28-30.

In the third game of the match SDSU went on the offensive and put IUPUI into difficult situations. On the brink of shutting out SDSU, IUPUI could not get the job done, and the Jaguars made the same mistakes that the Jacks made in the first two games.

“We keep on making mistakes in the first two (games), and in the third game we did not make mistakes, they actually did (make mistakes) and we capitalized on them,” said Palileo.

Late in the fourth game IUPUI aced SDSU (meaning IUPUI scored on the serve) and SDSU called a timeout. Following the timeout, SDSU rallied off seven straight points which carried the Jackrabbits to victory.

“You kinda could see the hesitation on their part, earlier on they were swigging really hard, and then at the end they started to place the ball and they were making errors of because of that,” said Palileo.

Having solid momentum on their side, the game tied at 2-2 a piece. The Jacks used a solid attack on the left side by Martin and McKenzie Osadchuk for the fifth game. The Jackrabbits only needed 15 points for game/match the win, due to a NCAA rule saying that on the fifth game teams only need to score 15 points and win by two points. Winning 15-8, SDSU secured a perfect record in the Summit League (4-0).

“It’s a huge deal to be up 4-0 in conference play and we are feeling good now, but not so good that we do not feel we have anything to work on, we are still trying to find our way, but in the process of that we have a pretty good winning streak going,” said Palileo.

SDSU returns to action on Sept. 27 against the Leathernecks of Western Illinois University at Frost Arena,.First serve is at 7 PM.