Oct. 27, 2005
Final Stats
LAS VEGAS - UNLV (10-11, 6-3 MWC) maintained its dominance over the Air Force Falcons (4-22, 0-11 MWC) Thursday night at the Cox Pavilion. With the 3-0 victory tonight the Rebels improve to 18-2 in the all-time series against the Falcons and have now won 13 in a row. More importantly, the Rebels snapped a three-game losing streak and improved to 6-3 in conference play. UNLV won the match with scores of 30-17, 30-22, 30-20.
The Rebels out hit the Falcons 46-to-33 and held a better hitting percentage (.243-to-.137), as well. UNLV hit for a match-high .324 in game two, while game one's .233 was close to the match's average. The Rebels tallied double-digit kills in all three of their games and kept each game's errors in single-digits. Air Force hit for .000 in its first game and followed that up with game two's .194 and game three's .200. The Falcons hit for double-digits in games two and three and held their errors below 10 in every game.
UNLV jumped out to a 17-3 lead with help from four-consecutive serves from Brittani Lumsden to start the game and nine-straight from Maria Aladjova. In the time the two of them spent at the service line Lumsden her only ace of the match and Aladjova threw down two of her career-best seven. The Rebels pushed their lead up to a game-high 16 points at the 22-18 mark. UNLV also had five 15-point leads and six in the 14-point range.
Game two was a much closer affair as the lead for either team was no greater than two points up to the 14-11 mark with UNLV holding serve. The Rebels would increase their lead to as much as nine on two occasions, 27-18 and 29-20.
In the third and final game, the Rebels began to pull away at 7-5 and maintained a lead ranging from four to six points for most of the match. The lead grew even greater once UNLV began scoring in the 20s. At the 20-13 mark, UNLV held a seven-point lead and bumped it to as high as 11 at 24-13. At that juncture the teams began swapping points and UNLV finished out the game with a 10-point spread.
For only the second-time this season, UNLV was held without an attacker with double-digits in kills. Lumsden and Aladjova were the closest as they each threw down nine winners.. The nine kills for Lumsden are her most since the last meeting with the Falcons on Oct. 1 in Colorado Springs. The match was the first occasion for Lumsden to play at the net since Oct. 1 and she made up for lost time by hitting at a .400 clip (9-3-15). Lumsden would have had the team's highest hitting percentage if you would take away Melody Nua's .600 (6-0-10). Nua lead the team in assists with 28. Jada Walker and Michelle Banks tallied eight digs apiece to tie for the team lead.
Kristin Hamlett was the lone attacker in the match to record +10 kills as she record 11 en route to a .381 hitting percentage (11-3-21). Carly Siefken assisted on 29 of the Falcons' 31 helpers. Rebecca Gallegos and Kim Kallabis each dug out seven Rebel attacks to tie for the team-high in digs.
Up next for UNLV is a Saturday night match with the New Mexico Lobos (12-6, 4-8 MWC). UNM will come to Las Vegas following its match at San Diego State on Friday evening. The Lobos and Rebels will serve it up at 7 pm in the Cox Pavilion.
Rebel Notes: The UNLV record for aces in a match is eight held by three former Rebels and was most recently accomplished in the 2001 season by Patricia Assuncao against Air Force.
