Oct. 26, 2002

Box Score

MIAMI - The University of Denver volleyball team trailed Florida International 2-0 Saturday night but won two straight games to force a deciding fifth game but the Golden Panthers prevailed to win 3-2 (25-30, 25-30, 30-25, 30-15, 17-15) in a Sun Belt Conference match at Golden Panther Arena. With the loss, the Pioneers fall to 3-16 overall on the season, 1-7 in conference play. Florida International improves to 7-17, 2-7.

The Pioneers dropped the first two games of the match by identical scores of 30-25 but rebounded to dominate the third and fourth games, including a 30-15 win in the fourth. In the deciding fifth game, the two teams knotted at 15 but FIU recorded two consecutive blocks of Pioneer attacks to take the match, 17-15. After attacking percentages of .103 and .118 in the first two games, the Pioneers recorded three straight games of attacking over .300 to end the match but came up short. Denver had a .244 attacking percentage in the match to just .141 for the Golden Panthers.

Four Pioneers recorded at least 10 kills, led by junior Olympia Hughes (Casper, Wyo.) with 14 and junior Jen Karas (Granby, Colo.) with 13. Florida International had a 71-57 kill advantage in the match and were led by Jennifer Owens with 19 kills and Adriana Fundora with 18.

"If we'd have played in the first two games like we did in the third and the fourth games, we never would have found ourselves in that situation (a deciding fifth game)," head coach Beth Kuwata said. " I think our serving game was much better and our blocking and defense were good. Its just a matter of coming up with a critical play when it counts. To say we lost the game in the fifth game is probably not true, we probably lost it in the first two games."

The Pioneers are next in action next Friday, Nov. 1 when they host SBC-West Division leader New Mexico State at 7 p.m.