Nov. 14, 2004

Box Score

DENVER - Despite a season-high 22 kills from sophomore outside hitter Lisa Hunter (St. Louis, Mo.), New Orleans staved off two match points and came back for a thrilling, 3-2 win (30-25, 21-30, 32-30, 30-32, 8-15) over the University of Denver Saturday night in the regular season finales for both teams. With the loss the Pioneers finish the regular season with a 13-14 overall record, 7-8 in the Sun Belt Conference. New Orleans improves to 19-10, 8-7.

The Pioneers won a convincing first game behind a match-high .452 hitting percentage as Hunter led Denver with seven kills in the game and junior Amanda Millard (Southlake, Texas) had six for Denver. New Orleans evened the match at one game apiece in the second game as the Privateers limited the Pioneers to just 10 kills and a .024 hitting game.

The third game saw New Orleans have the Pioneers on the ropes at 28-23 and ready to take a 2-1 match lead but Denver stormed back, winning six consecutive points to take a 29-28 lead and eventually winning, 32-30. New Orleans turned the tables in the fourth game, as the two teams traded leads six times in the game and Denver had match-point at 30-29 before the Privateers scored the next three points to win, 32-30.

There were five more tie scores and three lead changes in the deciding fifth game. With the score knotted at 6-all, New Orleans grabbed the lead at 7-6 and scored eight of the next 10 points for the hard fought victory.

"We had our opportunities to win this match," head coach Beth Kuwata said. "But you have to give them credit. They hung in there and out-defended us in the latter portions of the match. We got a bit tentative and we weren't able to get it done when it counted."

Four Pioneers recorded double-digits in kills, led by Hunter's 22 and freshman Kim Muller's (Ballwin, Mo.) 17. Millard chipped in 13 and junior Kristin Halt (St. Charles, Ill.) had 11 for Denver, who dropped both matches to New Orleans this season in five games. Jennifer Cruz had 22 kills to lead New Orleans.

The Pioneers have clinched at least the No. 7 seed in next week's Sun Belt Conference Tournament, which begins Thursday. The Pioneers can clinch the No. 6 with a Florida International defeat of Arkansas-Little Rock on Sunday.