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Loras had other ideas.
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Saint Mary's Sarah Gardner reaches to return the ball over Lora defenders Saturday at the Sugar Loaf Classic tournament in Winona. (Photo by Paul Solberg/Winona Daily News) |
In the final day of the Sugar Loaf Classic, SMU opened against hard-hitting and undefeated Loras and lost 3-1 (25-16, 25-21, 18-25, 25-21).
In the second game, SMU bounced back with a 3-1 (25-12, 25-13, 22-25, 25-8) win over Northland (Wis.).
The tournament had its ups and downs for the Cardinals.
The highlight was tying a school record Friday, being the first team since 1977 to start a season 6-0 after a win over Marian (Wis.).
Of course, it should be noted that was technically SMU’s seventh win of the season, because it defeated Viterbo 3-1 on Wednesday.
But because Viterbo is an NAIA school, the win didn’t count as an official match.
“It was a great start to the year, but Chicago and Loras are great teams,” said SMU sophomore libero Lindsey Legatt, who had 12 digs in the win over Northland.
“We put up strong fights. We can’t hang our heads.”
The downfall for the Cardinals (7-2) was getting into their offense.
“We weren’t in our system enough against Chicago (Friday) or Loras,” SMU coach Mike Lester said. “We broke down in serve-receive a bit this weekend.”
While the Cardinals couldn’t get into their offense, Loras (6-1), which lost its first match of the year in the Sugar Loaf championship to Luther, had no trouble getting into its offense.
“Loras is a fantastic serve-receive team, and has two phenomenal players who are Division I transfers,” Lester said of outside hitter Katie Russell and setter Jenny Dziubla.
Russell, a 5-11 sophomore, started every game for Xavier last season and was third on the team in kills (287).
Russell had 19 kills, hitting .311 against SMU. She also had 11 digs and four blocks.
Dziubla was an All-Mid-American Conference setter as a freshman in 2005 for Northern Illinois. The 5-9 senior was also an All-Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference setter the last two seasons for Loras.
Against SMU, she had 40 assists, 13 digs and two blocks.
The Cardinals bounced back easy enough after its first two losses of the season, getting another strong performance from middle-hitting freshman Amy Kujak in the win over Northland.
Kujak had 16 kills, hitting .394 and added four blocks. Brittany Cherwinka had 49 assists, 11 digs and Theresa Perrini added 17 digs against Northland.
Next up for SMU is a road match against Winona State at 8 p.m. Tuesday in McCown Gymnasium — part of WSU’s Pack the Gym night.
