Morton Fuels the Orange at Notre Dame

Saturday, November 1

South Bend, Ind.

10:00 a.m.

Syracuse University

Notre Dame

Junior Sarah Morton had 25 kills and only two errors against Notre Dame.

11/1/2008 1:39:50 PM | Volleyball

Box Score

Boxscore

SOUTH BEND, Ind. – Junior Sarah Morton posted a match-high 25 kills and team-high .561 attacker percentage for the Orange at Notre Dame’s Joyce Center Saturday morning in a 3-2 setback to the Fighting Irish. Syracuse (14-12, 5-4 BE) posted wins in both the second set (28-26) and fourth set (25-22), but Notre Dame (12-11, 7-3 BE) won the tiebreaker (15-7) for the victory.

“We started off a little slow, but picked it up here and there throughout the match,” assistant coach Carol LaMarche said. “We didn’t play our game. We’re looking to regroup tonight and hopefully we can post a win tomorrow at DePaul.”

Joining Morton in double-digit kills was freshman Noemie Lefebvre with 11. Also tallying kills for the Orange were sophomore Hayley Todd (8), junior Kacie MacTavish (5), senior April Quigley (4) and freshman Erin Little and sophomore Mindy Stanislovaitis with two each. Quigley paced the Orange offense with 44 assists.

Senior Marissa Kanemura had 14 digs for Syracuse, while Lefebvre posted a double-double with 12. Todd led the blocking effort for the Orange with five total and Morton added four block assists.

The first set was all Notre Dame as the Fighting Irish posted 17 kills to Syracuse’s nine to win the set, 25-12. However, the second set was a victory for the Orange. The score tied 23 times throughout the set, but two attack errors by the Fighting Irish would give the Orange the two point advantage it needed to win, 28-26.

The third set proved to be another Notre Dame affair with the Fighting Irish winning 25-20. Going into the fourth set, the Orange knew it needed a win to tie the match, 2-2. Neither team established a strong lead during the set, but despite being behind for much of the first part of the frame, the Orange fought back to a 23-22 advantage. Notre Dame would take two back-to-back timeouts, but kills from Morton and Lefebvre would close the set in favor of Syracuse, 25-22.

The tiebreaker started out as a back-and-forth affair, but Notre Dame would gradually pull away. Two SU timeouts were unable to smother the Fighting Irish momentum and Notre Dame would close out the set, 15-7.

The Orange looks to rebound tomorrow at BIG EAST foe DePaul. The Blue Demons are set to square off with Syracuse at 2 p.m. in McGrath Arena.

Match Notes:

The Orange out-blocked the Fighting Irish, 9-6.
Junior Sarah Morton improved her position on two of Syracuse’s all-time record lists. She is in fourth place on the all-time total blocks list with 426 and sixth on the all-time block assists list with 294.
Morton had a season-high 25 kills and only two errors on 41 attacks.
Junior Kacie MacTavish moved into ninth place on SU’s all-time attacks list after tallying 39 against Notre Dame. She has 2,778 for her career and has moved past Morgan Jones (’04) who had 2,759 attacks.