Box Score The Dominican University women’s volleyball team opened Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference (NACC) play on Tuesday evening, handing the visiting Aurora University Spartans a 3-1 loss at the Igini Sports Forum.
 
The Stars scored the first four points of the first set and led 10-6 after a kill by freshman Tessa Griparis (Shorewood, Ill.).  The Spartans answered eventually taking a 15-14 lead.  After trading leads, Dominican started to pull away as Caitlen Foote (Dexter, Mich.), the reigning NACC Freshman of the Year, pounded home a kill and then stepped back to serve three straight points for the Stars capped by another Griparis kill to take a 20-17 lead.  Dominican led the rest of the way, taking the set 25-21 on an emphatic kill by Foote.
 
Dominican opened up another 10-6 lead in the second set as an ace by Griparis forced an early timeout by the Spartans.  Aurora chipped away at the lead, pulling to within two points at 14-12 before Maddi Zanoni (Hudsonville, Mich.) and Foote logged back-to-back kills to extend the lead back to four at 16-12.  With the lead still at four at 20-16, Dominican rattled off three straight points en route to a 25-19 win in set two.
 
The Spartans claimed set three, opening the set on an 8-3 run.  Dominican clawed their way back into the set, eventually knotting the score at 23-23 but back-to-back errors by Dominican handed the set to the Spartans.
 
Dominican reestablished its dominance in the fourth set, logging a match-high .379 attack percentage while holding the Spartans to just a .069 hitting percentage.
 
Junior setter Becky Honerlaw (Waukesha, Wis.) ran a well-balanced offense for the Stars, dishing out 47 assists.  Claire Dezelski (Northville, Mich.) led the Stars with 15 kills on 34 total attempts with just three errors, hitting at a .353 clip.  Foote added ten kills of her own while Griparis and Zanoni logged nine kills apiece.
 
Defensively, Foote and Dezelski each rounded out their own double-double performance with 24 and 15 digs respectively while junior libero Cheyanne Kelly (Kalamazoo, Mich.) added 13 digs and Alyssa Davis (Bloomington, Ill.) racked up six total blocks (one solo, five assists).
 
With the win, Dominican improves to 5-2 on the season and 1-0 in the NACC.  The Stars will be back in action on this weekend, traveling to Kenosha, Wis., for a tournament at Carthage College.  The Stars will take on the University of Chicago and Carthage on Friday and then return to the court on Saturday to battle the University of Wisconsin-Platteville and University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.