Oct. 25, 2006

Daytona Beach, Fla. - Jacksonville University stormed back from a 1-0 deficit on Wednesday evening to defeat homestanding Bethune-Cookman College by a count of 3-1 inside Moore Gymnasium in Daytona Beach, Florida. Jacksonville won the match with scores of 28-30, 30-14, 30-19 and 30-24.

Bethune-Cookman (7-9) had never tasted a win against Jacksonville entering tonight's match. In fact, the Wildcats had never won a single game against the Dolphins of JU (10-11) coming into the match. One of those statistics would change, however, as the Wildcats used powerful hitting from senior Terra Wagner and freshman Tabatha Williams to take the first game by a count of 30-28.

The Dolphins helped out the Wildcats a lot in the first game as well with a plethora of hitting errors and service errors that were very uncharacteristic of the program.

In the second game, JU seemed to correct what went wrong ... and B-CC seemed a little bit tired.

JU stormed away with the 30-14 win in the second game behind some timely kills from Stevenique Richardson (15 kills / 4 blocks) and Petya Borisova (20 kills / 13 digs). The third game was much of the same as JU walked away with the 30-19 win with the `Cats having seven errors (three unforced) and some crucial kills from JU's Katie Hendrian--collecting four of her 10 kills in the third game.

The fourth game appeared to be a repeat of the prior two games, but the Wildcats fought until the very end.

Freshman Chelle Ticeson did her part with five blocks--one of three `Cats with five or more blocks, followed up by Dani Goodrum. Head coach Vanessa Cogswell elected to go with the two-player setter system tonight as the Canadian Connection of freshmen Kumiko Chow and Meredith McCormick combined for 38 of the Wildcats' 41 assists on the night. On the other side of the net, their competitors from Jacksonville countered with a two-player setter attack as well, led by Una Dzalba with a match-high 55 assists.

In the end, the Dolphins were able to hold on for the 30-24 win down the stretch. They also bounced back from a horrible hitting percentage in the opening game to a .368 attach percentage for the match. That came on the strength of just three errors through 102 attacks in the final three games of the match.

The Dolphins were led on the night by Borisova with a match-high 20 kills and 13 digs. JU's libero of Michelle Walroth collected a match-high 24 digs, while Richardson (15 kills) and Hendrian (10 kills) each pitched in double-digits in kills. Hendrian also registered 11 digs for the visiting Dolphins.

As for the Wildcats of Bethune-Cookman, Williams was the lone student-athlete in double figures for kills with 11, but Goodrum chipped in eight kills and 14 digs ... just shy of a double-double. Ariane Guy, the libero for the `Cats, collected 13 digs, while Wagner had seven kills and five digs. Picking up big blocks were Ticeson (5), Williams (5) and Vonetta Simpson with a match-high six blocks.

The Wildcats will now prepare to venture back into conference play when they take on North Carolina A&T on Friday night inside the friendly confines of Moore Gymnasium. The match begins at 7 p.m.