Sept. 3, 2010

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. - SIUE and Indiana State went five sets Friday and even went a little extra before the Sycamores defeated the Cougars 25-15, 25-19, 24-26, 18-25, 16-14 at the Drury Inn ISU Classic.

SIUE, 1-3, now must come back for two matches Saturday. SIUE faces off against Montana State at 10 a.m. ET and Western Carolina at 4:30 p.m. ET.

"I was very pleased and impressed by our team and the way we carried ourselves," said SIUE Head Coach Todd Gober of Friday's loss. The Cougars easily could have played out the match after Indiana State committed just five errors in the first two sets.

"It was a well played match that started off with ISU hot and machine-like," noted Gober.

SIUE's offense made the turn-around in the third set. Sydney Winslow, who led SIUE with a team-best 14 kills, recorded five of her kills in the third set. The 26-24 win in the third set put pressure back on the Sycamores.

"We turned things around and really took the momentum in that third set. It started with us blocking and the defense picked it up," said Gober. "We stayed patient in doing what we wanted and that was serving aggressive and knocking them out of system."

SIUE outside hitter Lexi Cibulka recorded 13 kills. "Lexi played big and came up with some big swings," said Gober.

SIUE continued to get stronger in the fourth set, winning easily 25-18.

The Cougars were picked up by some help from freshman middle hitter Kelsey Augustine, who finished with eight kills. "Kelsey was very composed in her first collegiate match. She hit the ball for a high percentage. To hit better than .500 in her first match is pretty impressive," said Gober. Augustine hit .583 with just 12 attacks.

Indiana State came up big in the fifth set. Tied 14-14, Loni Mackinson served out the match with a service ace and an attack error by SIUE defender Diane Schmidlin.

Morgan Dahl paced Indiana State with 17 kills. Auriel Armstrong and Ana Maira Charun added 14 and 11 kills each.

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