Nov. 5, 2006

Final Stats

Charleston, S.C. - With a team-high 13 digs on Sunday afternoon, Western Carolina freshman Liz Rondone broke the year-old Southern Conference single-season record for digs with one regular season match remaining. Rondone surpassed last season's SoCon Freshman of the Year, UTC's Lara Newberry, as the Catamounts were swept by the league-leading College of Charleston Cougars, 3-0 (30-18, 30-21, 30-19).

Rondone, who with each dig continues to rewrite her own WCU single-season record, currently has 741 digs surpassing the previous mark of 736. In last week's NCAA statistics, the Bloomington, Ill., native ranked 16th in the nation in digs per game (5.95) and was the only freshman listed among the top 30.

"Liz Rondone has had an amazing freshman season and I am so happy for her on setting the record today," said head coach Stephanie Dragan. "Aside from Liz's record, Meredith Harmon was our go-to player today and she did a great job of finding seams to reach double-figures."

Harmon paced the Catamounts with 12 kills recording just over half of WCU's total of 23 on the day. She also added a team-high four blocks in the loss, while freshman Katie Hennessey just missed the double-double with 16 assists and nine digs with senior Meghan Boyle finishing with seven.

The College of Charleston (21-7, 15-1 SoCon) was paced by Deanna Patrick with 13 kills. She hit at a .429 clip for the match, adding five digs. Patrick was followed by Tiffany Blum with 10 kills and six blocks. Marie Dobrenz anchored the Cougar defense with 15 digs, followed by Emily Sawin's 11. Sawin also added nine kills, four assists, three blocks and a service ace.

Western concludes its regular season this Sunday, Nov. 12 as it hosts Furman in the Ramsey Center on Senior Day at 2:00 pm. WCU will honor its four seniors - Meghan Boyle, Heather Koontz, Krista Neumann, and Kate Willard - in a pre-match ceremony.