Sept. 8, 2006

Box Score |  Notes

MILWAUKEE - Sarah Moore tallied 12 kills and Melissa David added 11 as the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee claimed a 30-23, 30-21, 30-22 win over Central Michigan Friday night at the Pepsi Panther Invitational.

The Panthers (5-2) hit .296 for the match in winning for the fourth-straight time.

Cheryl Hegemann pitched-in with nine kills while Jamie Gabrielsen and Monica Ferguson added eight apiece as UWM rode a balanced attack to its second win of the day in the tournament.

Mary Ochmanek and Alison Baker had nine kills apiece for the Chippewas (6-2), who saw their three-match winning streak snapped.

"The hard thing for teams to decide is who to try to stop and how to stop them," UWM head coach Kathy Litzau said of her team's balanced attack. "We're doing a good job of moving the ball around and making the block work. I was very impressed by their middles and they had a number of blocks, but we made it hard for them."

The Panthers steadily pulled away in a tight first frame. UWM grabbed the lead for good at 11-10 on a CMU error and turned that into four more points and a 15-10 advantage. The lead was still 20-15 following a Leanne Felsing kill and grew to 27-21 on an ace by David. A kill by Ferguson and two more Chippewa errors gave the Panthers the first frame.

UWM controlled game two from start to finish. The Panthers jumped out to a 10-5 lead on an ace by Felsing and expanded the edge to 18-8 following a block by David and Moore. UWM's advantage hit 25-13 on a CMU error and grew to 28-15 on another Chippewa error. Then, after a late CMU run, a block by Gabrielsen and Moore and a kill by David gave the Panthers a 2-0 lead in the match.

Milwaukee then pulled out a hard-fought third game with steady play down the stretch. The Panthers used a 7-1 run to turn a 12-all score into a 19-13 lead. The lead then expanded to 23-14 following a pair of UWM blocks and the Panthers controlled things from there. A kill by Ferguson pushed the lead to 29-21 and a kill by Gabrielsen finished things off for the Panthers.

UWM has now won its last four regular-season matches by 3-0 scores and has rarely found itself threatened in any of the games.

"We are setting high standards. We do expect every ball that we dig to transition into an attack," Litzau said. "When that doesn't happen, or when we don't convert that into a point, we are disappointed. We do expect very good things."

In the first match of the evening session, #11 Wisconsin controlled the match from start to finish in a 3-0 win over Northern Colorado. Amy Bladow led the Badgers (5-1) with 11 kills, while Wisconsin limited UNC to a .067 hitting percentage.

Action in the Pepsi Panther Invitational continues Saturday with four matches. Wisconsin and Windsor play at 11:30 a.m., followed by UWM against Northern Colorado at 2 p.m. The evening session starts at 4:30 p.m. with Windsor facing Central Michigan. Then, at 7 p.m., UWM and Wisconsin square off in the feature match of the weekend.