Sept. 7, 2007
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas - San Diego State got its weekend off to a perfect start with a three-game (30-23, 35-33, 30-25) win over host Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in their opening match at the Islander Holiday Inn Emerald Beach Invitational. The Aztecs improved to 5-2 on the season as they are off to their best start since the 2001 campaign when they began by winning six of their first seven. The match was the home opener for the Islanders, who saw their record drop to 2-5.
The victory was a team effort for SDSU as nine players recorded at least one kill. The trio of Lauren Salisbury, Sydney De Turk and Stephanie Darnall led the Aztecs with nine apiece. Salisbury also had five blocks and hit .316 over the three games while De Turk's kill total was a personal season best.
In addition to that trio, senior Kelley Wahlin notched six kills while hitting .462 and contributing five blocks. Lindsey Mahan had a team-high six blocks along with seven kills while libero Aime Cordeiro had 23 digs.
Three Islanders finished the match in double figures in kills led by Jordan Wagner with 16. However, as a team, TAMCC had just one more kill than San Diego State (50-49). SDSU ended the night with higher attack percentage (.197-.159) along with more blocks (13.5-9.0).
In the opening game of the match, the Aztecs won the first two points and led the entire way, slowing expanding their lead en route to the seven-point win. Darnall led her team with four kills while Cordeiro and Hannah Evans had seven and five digs respectively.
Game two saw San Diego State jump out to a 4-0 lead and maintain the advantage until the home side knotted the score at 25-25. The teams traded points to 33-33 when Darnall put together back-to-back kills to secure the win.
The Islanders came out for the third game looking to mount a comeback and led 8-4 before the Aztecs went on a six-point run to take the lead for good. They led by as many as seven at 27-20 before securing the match with the 30-25 score line. Salisbury led SDSU with four kills with Mahan recording three blocks.
San Diego State continues play in the tournament on Saturday (Sept. 8) when they face Texas-Pan American at 12:30 p.m. (CDT). The Aztecs will then face Northern Illinois at 4:00 p.m. (CDT) to wrap up weekend action.