Nov. 18, 2004

NEW ORLEANS - Second-seeded Western Kentucky held a 73-61 kills advantage and recorded a .321 attack percentage in a 3-1 win (34-32, 21-30, 24-30, 22-30) over the University of Denver Thursday afternoon in the opening round of the Sun Belt Conference Volleyball Tournament. The loss ends Denver's season and drops the Pioneers to a 13-15 overall record. Western Kentucky improves to 25-6 and moves on to the semifinals tomorrow.

The Pioneers won the first game 34-32 behind a match-high .341 attack percentage and seven kills from freshman Kim Muller (Ballwin, Mo.) and looked poised to pull off the upset.

But Western Kentucky's net defense got them back in the match in the second game. The Lady Toppers held the Pioneers to a match-low -.026 hitting percentage as Denver had just 11 kills and recorded 12 errors in the 30-21 loss. WKU continued its stellar defense in the third game as well, holding the Pioneers to just a .136 hitting mark and holding a 19-14 kills advantage.

Denver had its chances to take game four but Western Kentucky's offense was very efficient, recording 17 kills and committing just four errors and eventually taking an eight-point lead that proved too much for the Pioneers to overcome.

"They played some really good defense on us and got us out of system in the second, third, and fourth games," head coach Beth Kuwata said. "The difference really was the play of their outsides. We felt that if we could get them to force the ball outside it would help us but we were able to do it and their outside hitters really got it going. They just played much better as the match went on than they did in the first game."

Western Kentucky had four players finish with double digits in kills, led by a match-high 17 from Lyndsey Broerman. Amanda Schiff led WKU with a .571 hitting percentage with 12 kills and no errors. Muller led the Pioneers with 14 kills and junior Amanda Millard (Southlake, Texas) and sophomore Lisa Hunter (St. Louis, Mo.) had 12 and 11, respectively.

WKU knocked Denver out of the conference tournament for the third time in the last four seasons.

Denver returns all 13 players from this year's squad in 2005.