It wasn’t that the Rochester Mayo Spartans did anything fancy.

Wednesday, October 03, 2001

It wasn’t that the Rochester Mayo Spartans did anything fancy.

The Albert Lea Tigers just couldn’t stop it.

The Spartans, relying on an offense that continuously fed the ball to their outside hitters, had one spiker with 33 kills and another with 16 in handing the Tigers a 3-2 loss in a Big Nine volleyball match at Albert Lea High School Tuesday night.

The Tigers started slow, dropping the first two games 15-11 and 15-12, but they sent it to a fifth game by winning 17-15, 15-5. They lost game five 15-6.

It was the second straight 3-2 loss for the Tigers, who fell to 5-9 overall and 1-5 in the Big Nine.

According to coach Gina Eppen, the Tigers did some things well but were clearly not on top of their game Tuesday.

&uot;Mayo ran an offense with one real strong hitter, and we were just not able to shut that down,&uot; said Eppen.

The Tigers’ leaders: Beth Kolling, five kills, 23 assists, six blocks, two aces; Aubree Page, 12 kills, six blocks, two aces, seven digs; Jenny Vanderploeg, 10 kills, 19 digs, one block; Amie Hartman, 14 digs, seven kills, one block, one ace; Whitney Sorensen, three kills, four blocks, two aces; Ashley Rankin, six assists, three kills.

To our girls’ credit, they hung in there,&uot; said Eppen. &uot;But wanting to win and being physically able to win are two different things. We weren’t able to do that tonight.&uot;

The Tigers are off until Saturday’s Mason City Invitational.