Rice Has Big Opening Weekend at River City Tourney

Erin Schaffner totaled 42 kills, while helping Wooster to a 2-2 record.

Behind an all-tournament performance by junior Tiffany Rice, The College of Wooster kicked off the 2004 campaign with a third-place finish at the eight-team River City Tournament, hosted by Marietta College, this past weekend (Sept. 3-4).

Wooster (2-2) finished at the top of its division in pool play, starting out with a four-game victory over the host school (26-30, 30-21, 30-27, 30-19), followed by a four-game setback at the hands of Washington & Jefferson College (28-30, 27-30, 30-16, 25-30) on Friday. Saturday morning, the Scots swept past Carlow College 30-23, 30-14, 30-13 to set up a match-up with Carnegie Mellon University in the semifinals.

Carnegie Mellon was too much for Wooster 30-17, 30-23, 30-26, and the Tartans went on to the team championship with a 30-25, 25-30, 30-21, 30-26 decision over Denison University in the finals.

Rice, one of six players named to the all-tourney team, pounded down 59 kills over the four matches and made just five total errors en route to a .403 kill percentage. Rice had a "perfect" match against Carnegie Mellon, registering 19 kills and zero errors in 35 attempts.

Complementing Rice on the front row was sophomore Erin Schaffner, who added 42 kills.

Freshman setter Heather Wolff was impressive in her collegiate debut, tallying 135 assists or an average of 9.64 per game.

Defensively, junior libero Mary-Kate Fowkes led the way with 74 total digs and sophomore Ashley Quisenberry contributed 47 digs and 25 total blocks (1.56 per game).

The Scots will get right into North Coast Athletic Conference play Wednesday night (Sept. 8), when they play their first dual match against Allegheny College at Timken Gymnasium.