Oct. 15, 2004

Box Score

DENVER - Using a combined 31 kills from its two freshmen middle blockers Sarah Wirth (Sacramento, Calif.) and Kim Muller (Ballwin, Mo.), the University of Denver volleyball team handed Western Kentucky its first Sun Belt Conference loss of the season Friday night, 3-1 (32-30, 30-28, 12-30, 30-26) in Hamilton Gymnasium. The Pioneers grabbed their first win over the Lady Toppers since 2000 and evened their record at 9-9 on the season, 3-4 in conference play. WKU drops to 17-3, 5-1.

Denver won a hard fought first game with its best hitting game of the night, a .283 hitting effort and a match-high 18 kills. Both Muller and junior Amanda Millard (Southlake, Texas) each had six kills for the Pioneers, who limited Western Kentucky to just a .120 hitting percentage. In the second game, Denver again was dominant on the defensive side, allowing just 13 kills and holding WKU to a .000 hitting percentage.

After dropping the third game, the Pioneers rebounded to win the fourth as the defense again stepped up, blocking 6.5 WKU attacks and holding the Lady Toppers to a -.024 hitting percentage, their lowest of the match. Junior Kristin Halt (St. Charles, Ill.) led the Pioneers with four kills in the game and finished with a double-double, recording 10 kills and 14 digs in the match.

Wirth finished with a match-high 16 kills and Muller added 15 for the Pioneers, who snapped a two-match losing streak.

"This was a very important win for us," head coach Beth Kuwata said. "We knew coming into this weekend that we needed to play well and get two wins and we took a big step tonight. One of our focuses for this match was to try to get the ball to our two young middles as much as possible and we accomplished that. It's nice to see those two put together a string of good matches."

Denver defeated Western Kentucky for the first time since a 3-1 win on Oct. 13, 2000, its longest drought against any Sun Belt opponent.

The Pioneers will go for the two-match weekend sweep when they take on Middle Tennessee on Sunday at 1 p.m.