Sept. 20, 2002

Box Score

DENVER - The University of Denver volleyball team lost the first game of its own Denver Invitational volleyball tournament Friday night, falling to No. 8 Minnesota in three games (30-24, 30-23, 30-24). The loss drops Denver's overall season record to 0-8 on the season. Minnesota improves to 11-2.

Denver played a much better defensive game than in any of its previous seven losses, recording a season-high eight blocks against the bigger Gophers. Sophomore Emilee Gihring (Idaho Falls, Idaho) led the team with two solo blocks and three other Pioneers each had one. The Pioneers were hurt by 10 service errors and 24 attacking errors. Denver had an attacking percentage of just .030 in the match.

Minnesota was inconsistent on offense for most of the match, recording 46 kills with 32 attacking errors for a .107 attack percentage. Sophomore Trisha Bratford was dominant for Minnesota, recording nearly half of all of the Gophers' kills with a career-high 22. Minnesota actually had fewer team blocks than the Pioneers as the Gophers finished with six.

"We were much better defensively tonight," head coach Beth Kuwata said. "I think all things considered this is the best match we've played up to this point. We did a much better job of tracking and knowing what was going on. I thought it was a good effort by everyone and I thought we stayed in the match well. This was probably the biggest team we'll face all season and we did okay. If we can move on from this and get better we'll be okay."

In the earlier game of the Denver Invitational, No. 23 Santa Clara knocked Maryland from the ranks of the unbeaten with a three-game victory.

Day two of the Denver Invitational gets under way tomorrow with Minnesota taking on Santa Clara at 11 a.m. Denver will play Maryland in the second game of the early session at 1:30 p.m. The evening wraps up with a 5 p.m. match of Minnesota and Maryland and the Pioneers close the tournament by taking on Santa Clara at 5:30 p.m.