Sept. 30, 2001

Stats

DENVER - Sophomore outside hitter Jenn Karas (Granby, Colo. / Middle Park HS) had a career-high 19 kills and a match-high 19 digs and senior OH Kellie Savage (Arvada, Colo. / Arvada West HS) led all players with 20 kills to help the University of Denver to a 3-1 (30-26, 30-27, 33-35, 30-20) win over New Orleans in Sun Belt Conference volleyball action Sunday afternoon.

With the win, Denver's second straight, the Pioneers (6-6, 2-2 Sun Belt) return to the .500 mark for the first time in nearly a month. UNO falls to 4-8 and 0-4 in the league.

For the most part, the two teams matched each other point for point through the first 2-1/2 games as the Pioneers staked to a 2-0 lead. In the third, New Orleans fell behind 13-7 and were faced with match point down 29-24 before reeling off five straight points to tie the game. Both teams traded points until UNO's Melissa Caravella nailed two kills and the Privateers took advantage of a Denver attack error from senior setter Clarice Golesh-Burch (Lakewood, Colo. / Mullen HS) to avoid the sweep and force a fourth game.

New Orleans jumped out to a 9-4 lead in the fourth yet, after a Denver timeout, the Pioneers scored 13 of the next 17 points to take a 17-13 lead. Denver slowly pulled away until the 2-hour-long match was ended with a service ace from right-side hitter Olympia Hughes (Casper, Wyo. / Natrona County HS).

Golesh-Burch had a season-high 61 assists, and quarterbacked the offense to a team hitting percentage of .236 - the third-best total of the season. Karas and Savage combined for the best outside-hitter production of the season, as they totaled 39 kills and a .341 hitting percentage between them.

"We needed to win both of these matches this weekend and defend our home court," said head coach Beth Kuwata. "The conference has improved from top to bottom, so anyone can win on the road if you don't take each match one at a time. We've been struggling on offense the past few weeks, so it was good to get some production from our outsides. I thought Jenn Karas had a tremendous match all the way around."

The Pioneers' next match is this Friday, Oct. 5, when Denver heads up US-36 to take on the University of Colorado in a match rescheduled from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. First serve is 7 p.m. at the Coors Events Center in Boulder.