TERRE HAUTE, Ind. -- Indiana State closes out the regular season with road matches at Illinois State and Bradley. The Sycamores and Redbirds will meet Friday at 8 p.m. ET before wrapping up the weekend with Bradley Saturday at 8 p.m. ET. Both matches will air live on The Valley On ESPN3.
After taking two matches over last weekend, Indiana State moves ever closer to reaching the postseason. The Sycamores have not been to the postseason since 2014 when ISU went to the Missouri Valley Conference Championship. More impressive is the Sycamores are this close under the direction of a first-year coach in
Lindsay Allman.
ISU has four players with 200 or more kills this season led by
Laura Gross with a team-best 354. Redshirt sophomore
Cassie Kawa has 239 kills and a team-leading .311 attacking percentage while
Sarah Peterson sits with 223 kills in 105 sets played. Freshman
Nikkie White joined the club over the weekend, now with 202 kills.
Laura Gross leads the Sycamore attack with 354 kills this season at 3.37 kills per set. The Potomac, Illinois product has recorded 12 matches with 15+ more kills and ranks second on the team in total digs with 391.
Gross put together an outstanding weekend for the Sycamores as she led Indiana State to a weekend sweep of Loyola and Valparaiso. She went for 39 total kills and 35 digs over the two-match stretch, for her 17th and 18th double-doubles of the season.
Sophomore
Cassie Kawa sits fifth in The Valley with a .311 attacking percent this season. Kawa, a middle blocker for the Sycamores has 239 (2.30 k/s) this season which is second on the squad. The Alberta, Canada native has hit over .300 in 16 matches this season for the Sycamores, including a season best .529 against Bradley. Kawa has also recorded 60 blocks (0.58 b/s) for the Trees; third on the team in the category.
Sarah Peterson is third on the squad with 223 kills (2.12 k/s) for the Sycamores this season, hitting .176 in 105 sets. The outside hitter has accounted for 253 points for the Sycamores, which ranks third on the squad. She has recorded a kill in every match she has played this season with a season high 13 kills coming against Drake (10/7).
Defensively, Indiana State has two of the top blockers in the MVC in sophomore
Damadj Johnson and freshman
Nikkie White. The duo has combined for 163 of the teams' 308 blocks this season. Johnson has 21 multi-block matches while White has 19 on the season.
Libero
Stephanie Bindernagel leads the team on the defensive side of the ball with a team-high 506 digs. Bindernagel is averaging 4.69 digs per set to lead the team and has had 10 or more digs in all but one match this season with a season-best 38-dig performance coming against IUPUI.
Senior setter
Rachel Griffin paces the Sycamores with 9.96 assists per set, recording 1,076 assists so for this year. Griffith made history against SIU (9/30) when she recorded her 2,000th career assist against the Salukis. Griffin is just the 11th player to reach the mark in program history and the first to do so since Erika Nord reached the milestone in 2015.
THE OPPOSITION
Bradley leads the all-time series against Indiana State, 38-30 with the first match in the series dating back to 1981. Though the Braves have won almost 10 more matches in the series, ISU has taken six of the last seven matches, including a 3-1 win in Terre Haute earlier this season.
Indiana State trails the all-time series with the Redbirds, 57-8, falling in the last eight meetings. The Sycamores last win in the series came in 2013 at home in a 3-1 win.
For the latest information on the Sycamore Volleyball team, make sure to check out
GoSycamores.com. You can also find the team on social media including
Facebook, Twitter and
Instagram.
