Wake Forest Athletics
Wake Drops First Match of the Season to Louisville
9/5/2008 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
Sept. 5, 2008
Box Score | Box Score in PDF Format 
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - Louisville played solid defense and got 20 kills from Justine Landi to hand Wake Forest its first loss of the season in the opening round of the Adidas Classic at Indiana. The Cardinals won in four sets 25-22, 30-28, 21-25, 25-19.
The loss drops the Deacons to 3-1 on the season while Louisville improves to 2-0.
Graduate student Natalie Mullikin led the offensive attack for the Deacs with 22 kills and a pair of block assists. Sophomore Kristen White chipped in with 11 kills while fellow sophomore Kelsey Jones recorded her second double-double of the season with 48 assists and 16 digs.
Landi led three Cardinals with double figure kills with 20. Anatasia Artemeva added 14 kills and Tatyana Kolesnikova finished with 10. Defensively, Lecia Brown ended the match with 10 total blocks while the Cardinals ended with a total of 16 blocks as a team.
The Louisville block was the difference in the match as each team managed 68 digs and the Cardinals held just a slight edge in hitting percentage at .268 to .174 for the Deacs.
The first set was back-and-forth the entire way as neither team held larger than a two point lead until the very end. With the score tied at 20-20, the Cardinals went on a late 4-1 run to take the first set 25-22. Mullikin had seven of her 22 kills in the first set.
The second set was a thriller. The Deacs held a 14-10 lead when the Cardinals took advantage of a couple of Wake Forest miscues to spark a 12-5 run and opened up a 22-19 advantage. The Deacs fought back to take the lead on a pair of kills from Mullikin and pulled within a point of victory at 24-23. But Louisville won the next two points to make it 25-24 and the teams traded points until a late error by Wake gave the Cardinals the second set 30-28. Mullikin had another good set, posting nine kills.
With the score tied at 18-18 in the third set, it was Wake's turn to take advantage of some sloppy play by the Cardinals. White recorded a pair of kills while fellow sophomore Lauren McIntrye recorded her seventh kill of the match to make the score 23-19 in favor of the Deacs. Freshman Kadija Fornah ultimately finished off the set with a kill of her own, giving the Deacs a 25-21 win.
Wake held leads of 3-2 and 9-8 in the fourth set but three straight errors would give Louisville a 12-9 lead. Wake would pull to within one at 17-16 but Louisville pulled away down the stretch to take the set and the match 25-19.
The Deacs will continue the Adidas Classic tonight as the play host Indiana at 7:30 p.m. Wake will finish the tournament tomorrow against Valparaiso at 12:30 p.m.
