It’s been a rough two weeks for the Saint Louis volleyball team. The Billikens have struggled against ranked teams in two different tournaments, including last weekend’s State Farm Classic in Champaign, Ill., where the team went 1-2. With conference play just one week away, the Bills get their final shot to show the volleyball nation why they went undefeated last season in their conference.
The No. 22 Billikens return home this weekend to host the annual Billiken Invitational Tournament at the Chaifetz Pavilion where they will face local rival SIU Edwardsville, Friday at 7 p.m., unbeaten Toledo and University of California at Davis in the tournament finale.? ?
“These are teams that will be gunning for us. None of them are ranked, but that doesn’t mean they’re not good,” head coach Anne Kordes said. “These teams are going to be fired up against us. I think everyone’s looking forward to staying home and playing in front of our fans.”
And SLU should be fired up to be back in the Gateway City. The road has been brutal to the Bills so far this season; they have won just two matches of six outside of St. Louis. Against ranked teams, the team mustered just one win, against No. 10 California, in five chances. Since, they’ve seen their poll numbers slide, from No. 16 a week ago to No. 22 today. That standing is two spots lower than their pre-season rankings.
It’s a disappointment for a team that is expected to win the Atlantic 10 conference for the second consecutive year, even if Kordes sees it through a different lens.
“I want them to play against high level teams,” she said. “We’re not worried about win-loss record right now. We could end up with the same out of conference record as we did last year; we just have to take care of the rest of the teams
“We’ve played one of the toughest non-conference schedules in the country. I set the schedule up knowing we could lose every match, but that’s okay; it wasn’t about that. We’ve gotten a lot better.”
Last weekend, SLU got a big win over Illinois State, but after beating the Redbirds, SLU won one of its next seven sets. Hitting errors plagued the Bills all weekend; a tough Cincinnati team took the Bills down 25-27, 23-25, 17-25 and No. 14 Illinois swept SLU 22-25, 14-25, 25-18, 23-25.
Sophomore Alyssa Deno was named to the All-Tournament team after posting the best two matches of her collegiate career.? Deno paced the Bills, averaging a team-high 3.70 kills per set, while hitting at a team-best .297 clip en route to All-Tournament honors. Deno returned to her regular position on the outside in the tournament opener against Illinois State. She finished with a career- and match-high 19 kills, a career-best .500 hitting percentage and a career-high seven digs. Deno led Saint Louis with 15 kills in the tournament finale against No. 14 Illinois.
“It’s not surprising to me; she’s good,” Kordes said about the sophomore. “What people don’t understand is that she’s just a really good volleyball player. She deserves this press and the honors she got. She’s been playing out of position so it’s pretty unbelievable.”
In related Billiken news, Saint Louis has played in two of the most highly attended volleyball matches so far this season. As of Sept. 14, the Billikens’ match against Penn State at Chaifetz Arena drew the eighth-largest volleyball attendance this season (6,106). SLU also played in the 12th-most attended match this season (5,566) when it took on Hawaii Sept. 3.?
