Wildcats struggle despite Weiskircher’s MVP performance
(Sept. 16, 2000) — The University of Kentucky Volleyball team failed to pick up a victory at the Kentucky Conference Challenge Volleyball Tournament held September 15 and 16 at Memorial Coliseum. UK (2-7) lost to Southern Illinois on Friday evening in three games before falling victim to Austin Peay and James Madison on Saturday. James Madison finished the round robin tournament with a perfect 3-0 record. Austin Peay placed second with a mark of 2-1, followed by Southern Illinois, 1-2, and Kentucky 0-3.
Despite going winless, the individual play of senior middle blocker Megan Weiskircher earned her the tournament Most Valuable Player award, as decided upon by coaches from the respective teams. In addition to Weiskircher, the all-tournament team consisted of Jenny Noel and Tara Cains from Southern Illinois, Annie Glieber of Austin Peay, and Larissa Daily and Karla Gessler from James Madison.
UK was impressive early in Saturday evening’s finale against tournament champion James Madison. The Cats took the opening game, 15-9, behind the strong performance of Liz McCaslin. With seven kills in game one, the Kentucky sophomore equaled her career-high on her way to setting a new personal best of 15 for the match. McCaslin also established a career-high with 23 digs.
After game one, James Madison quickly regrouped and took full advantage of numerous Kentucky errors as they took games two, three and four, 15-8, 15-13, and 15-5, respectively.
In Saturday evening’s first match, Austin Peay and Southern Illinois played yet another classic stretching to five games, playing to extra points in the fifth game. APSU romped to a 15-7 victory in game one after racing out to a 13-3 lead. The Salukis responded in games two and three, coming back from a 5-0 deficit. Austin Peay walked away with game four. However, the match was on in game five with both teams trading points on the first eight serves of the game to 4-4. The team’s continued to trade points in pairs until 16-16, when a kill by APSU’s freshman Amy Walk followed by a Saluki attack error handed Austin Peay its 18-16 victory.
Kentucky will attempt to rebound from this weekend’s losses on Tuesday as they host intrastate rival Western Kentucky at Memorial Coliseum. The match is scheduled to get underway at 7:00 p.m. ET
