Oct. 18, 2004
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This Week: The Hawkeyes (9-11, 1-7) are on the road this week against Purdue (10-8, 3-5) Friday and Indiana (7-10, 1-7) Saturday. The matches are scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. Live statistics and updates of the Purdue match can be found on the Purdue volleyball results page at www.purduesports.collegesports.com under Gametracker. Indiana does not have this service available.
Last Week: Iowa dropped Big Ten matches to nationally ranked Minnesota and Illinois. The #2-ranked Gophers and the #24-ranked Fighting Illini both swept the Hawkeyes in Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
The Boilermakers: Coach Dave Shondell has led his team to a deceiving 3-5 Big Ten record this season. Purdue upset Illinois (3-1) on the road and two losses came at the hands of nationally-ranked Ohio State and Penn State. Leading the Purdue attack is Leah Wischmeier and Kim McConaha with 4.36 and 4.15 kills per game, respectively. Junior Renata Dargan directs the offense with an average of 13.56 assists per game and is second on the team with 14 service aces. Five different Boilermakers have over 100 digs this season with Daren Poe leading the group with 238 and an average of 3.72 per game.
Iowa-Purdue Series: Purdue leads the series 32-18. Iowa and Purdue split matches last year with Purdue winning at home in September in three games and Iowa winning a five-game match in Iowa City in November.
The Hoosiers: Coach Katie Weismiller is in her tenth year at Indiana and has a seven-match winning streak against Iowa. This year’s squad features nine underclassmen (freshmen and sophomores) and only four upperclassmen. The only two seniors on the roster, Katie Pollom and Christina Archibald, lead the offense with 3.81 and 3.73 kills per game. Sophomore Tasha Arsenych has 869 assists and averages 11.74 assists per game. Freshman Christine Nilles is second on the team with 3.09 digs per game while also chipping in 1.49 kills per game. Mandy Eberle leads the team with 95 blocks for a 1.28 average.
Iowa-Indiana Series: The Hoosiers lead the series 28-20. The last Hawkeye win came in 2000. Indiana beat Iowa twice in 2003.
In Fredrick’s words: “With Stacy Vitali and Laura Simpson both out with illness, we need all of our hitters to step up. Carolyn Giese did a good job of leading on the court last weekend, but one person isn’t enough and everyone needs to be involved offensively.
“Going into this week, we need to do a better job of pursuing the ball. Defense is usually one of our strengths, and I want to see our team get that attitude back. We also need to improve our ball control, which is critical to our transitioning.
“Purdue is a very good team, and Coach Shondell has really been doing a great job in his second year there. Right now he is doing what we are hoping to do here; he’s working with in-state talent to improve their program.
“Indiana has really good balance on its team and they are strong defensively. Even though they have the same record as us, we cannot overlook them. They just took Wisconsin to five games, and they have all of their players healthy.
“For us to come away with any wins this week means that our players are going to have to show a lot of heart. Everyone has to be ready to compete all of the time, not just one or two players.”
Making History: Senior libero Pam Kavadas has 351 digs this season for a career total of 1,613. That makes her third on Iowa’s all-time dig list. Janet Moylan (1987-1990) is Iowa’s all-time dig leader with 1,931.
Fellow senior Carolyn Giese is also chasing the record books. Giese has 246 kills this season for Iowa, a team leading 3.51 kills per game. For her career, Giese has 816 kills out of 2,122 attempts. Her attacking percentage is .213, which puts her at number 16 on the Iowa all-time attack percentage list.
Big Ten News: In Big Ten matches, Justeen Patton has cracked the top ten with 220 assists in 25 games for an average of 8.8 assists per game. Lauren Bruckner is seventh with eight aces, for an average of 0.30 ace serves per game. In 27 conference games, Pam Kavadas has 126 digs, for an average of 4.67 per game, fifth-best in the league.
Counting all games played this season, Pam Kavadas is ninth with 22 service aces in 70 games for an average of 0.31 per game. Kavadas is also third with 351 digs for an average of 5.01 digs per game. Chelsey Garrett is tenth in the assists category with 363 in 40 games for an average of 9.07 assists per game. Iowa is seventh in service aces with 90 aces in 70 games for an average of 1.29 per game. The Hawkeyes are fourth in digging with 1134 digs in 70 games for 16.20 digs per game.