St. Louis, Mo. - The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse volleyball team split a pair of matches Saturday at the Washington University in St. Louis Invitational. In the first match, UWL fell 3-1 (13-25, 25-18, 21-25, 18-25) to Millikin University (Ill.) but bounced back in the second match to defeat Luther College (Iowa) 3-0 (25-18, 25-19, 25-23). Splitting the matches moves UWL to 9-12 on the year. 

In the match against Millikin University, the Big Blue jumped out to a 7-3 lead before the Eagles cut their deficit to 11-9. Millikin then went on an 8-0 run to take a 19-9 lead. UWL would not get any closer than eight the rest of the first set. 

Millikin, receiving votes on this week's American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) Top-25 Poll, scored the first point of the second set; however, UWL scored eight straight to take an 8-1 lead. Gabrialla Johnson sparked the early run for the Eagles with three kills. Leading 12-5, UWL scored five straight to extend their lead to 17-5 and Big Blue would not get closer than five (23-18) the rest of the way. As a team, UWL recorded 18 kills and hit .371 in the second set. 

UWL stayed hot to start the third set as it scored the first five points to lead 5-0 which included a kill by Johnson and a service ace from Brianne Korducki. THe Big Blue would tie it at 5-5 but UWL regained the lead and took a 12-10 lead. Millikin then went on a 6-0 run to take its first lead of the set. UWL cut their deficit to 20-17 on a kill by Madison Weisensel but Millikin scored five of the final nine points to take the third set 25-21.

The Big Blue scored the first three points of the fourth set and built an early 8-5 lead. UWL would take a 10-9 lead with a 5-1 run which included two kills from Korducki. After Millikin took a 14-11 lead, UWL got a service ace from Keller Frinzi, two kills from Johnson and a service error by Big Blue to take a 15-14 lead. That would be the final lead of the set for the Eagles as Big Blue scored eight straight points to lead 22-15. 

Johnson finished with a season match-high 18 kills while Korducki added 11 kills. Megan Adams finished with a match-high 29 assists and 18 digs for her eighth double-double of the season. As a team, the Eagles finished with 42 kills and 10 assisted blocks.

Tori Stuart led the Big Blue with 19 kills while Kailee Itzenhuiser added 14. As a team, Millikin finished with 48 kills and 10 total blocks. 

Statistics are not available at this time for the match versus Luther (Iowa).

UWL will return to action Friday, October 14 when it travels to UW-Platteville for a Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference match-up. First serve is schedule for 7 p.m.