The regular season of Saint Louis University volleyball comes to
a close this weekend, with games against Tulane tomorrow night and
Southern Miss Saturday evening. The Billiken’s post-season hopes
could rest in the outcomes of those games. They currently hold the
12th and final Conference USA post-season tournament seed, but
Charlotte and East Carolina are only a game behind and are looking
to capitalize on any SLU slip ups.

“We have a good opportunity this weekend. It kind of depends on
how we start, though. We are a young team and sometimes when we get
behind early we shut down a bit and by the time we come alive it’s
too late. Hopefully we’ll be able to come out strong and play the
way we can,” said coach Marilyn Nolen.

In years past, the Billikens have typically been a formidable
road opponent for a lot of teams; however, this season they have
not been able to find their bearings at home and have been unable
to defend the home court once in conference play. That does not
bode well against Tulane, who currently occupies the fifth spot in
the conference and is fighting for a first round bye in the
upcoming tournament. Tulane has a tenacious defense that swarms to
the ball like angry hornets and features a defensive specialist,
Karlyn Daly, who recently had 27 digs in one match.

“Twenty digs in a match is a huge feat. I can’t even imagine
someone getting any where near 30. We are definitely going to have
to finish our points and hit very well because she could rob us of
some points,” Nolen said.

Tulane is a very athletic team, and aside from their outstanding
defense they also have several players capable of hitting double
digits in kills in any given match. If there is one weakness that
the Billikens will have to exploit over the Green Wave, it will be
their sometimes lax ball-control.

“It just means that we have to keep taking it to them. They are
a very experienced team, and their whole team has come up in the
system. If we play hard and do the things we do well, like passing,
digging and defense, then we could take it to them,” Nolen
said.

After Tulane, though, it does not get any easier. Southern Miss
is the third-seeded team in C-USA, and they are riding a four-game
winning streak, with only two conference losses. They are a very
experienced squad, which is sports jargon for “older,” and they are
not a team that loses very many long matches.

“All of their top players are seniors, which tends to help more.
We have played well against the top two teams though, Louisville
and Cincinnati, and we are very capable of playing well against
Southern Miss and Tulane, too,” Nolen said.

The matches this weekend are made all the more important after
the Bills fell last weekend to Charlotte, which was previously
winless in the conference.

“Charlotte had an outside hitter who had 20 kills, and we just
did not have good offense. Even with all of that, though, we were
in it all of the way, we just made some errors down the stretch and
shot ourselves in the foot,” Nolen said.

The Bills took the first game 30-28, but dropped the next two
and were forced to rally to try and stay in the match. The final
game was neck and neck throughout, but the 49ers were able to edge
the Billikens out at the end 30-28, tallying one more kill than the
Bills in the final game. Alyson Merchant provided a lot of the
Bills’ offense, notching 12 kills, and Alexis Cooley continued her
arrival as a force in the middle, putting up 11 kills and eight
blocks. Kayla Kmitta, yet another Bill who has come on stronger and
stronger as the season progressed, put up 10 kills in the losing
effort.

The loss dropped the Bills into a tie for the final post-season
berth with Charlotte and East Carolina. However, the tie was
short-lived, because one night later, the Bills took on the Pirates
of ECU and dropped them three games to one, thus reclaiming the
final seed.

Kmitta and Cooley again combined for much of the Billiken
offense, as they each tallied 19 kills and combined for 11 blocks.
There were also four Bills in double-digits in the digs column.

The Bills will look to carry the momentum from the win over ECU
to tomorrow night, in hopes of overcoming some early season bumps
and making a run into the C-USA tournament.