The Dominican University women's volleyball team gave the Aurora University Spartans, the 2018 Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference (NACC) champions, all they could handle in the conference regular season finale for both squads, falling in four sets (22-25, 25-22, 25-19, 25-22).  With the loss, the Stars fall to 18-8 overall and 9-3 in league play, securing the three-seed in the 2018 NACC Women's Volleyball Tournament.
 
"We did a great job competing tonight," said Cameron Andrew, the Stars' first-year head coach. "You have to give credit where it is due and Aurora played a really solid match. We now know we can hang with them and definitely had some opportunities that could have put us over the edge. On the whole, I'm really happy with how we played. We have two matches this weekend to help us get all the little kinks out so we are ready to make a tournament run."
 
The Stars managed to hit at just an .070 clip in the loss, connecting for 41 kills on 171 total attacks while committing 29 errors, including 13 Aurora blocks.  Gabija Sinickaite led the way for the Stars, knocking down 12 kills on 40 attempts.  Gillian Jones and Stephanie Cole added eight kills and seven kills respectively while Anastasia Labadessa ran the offense, picking up 32 assists.
 
Defensively, the Stars slowed the Spartans' offense to their second-lowest attack percentage on the season, hitting just .106 in the win.  Cole led the defensive effort at the net, logging five total blocks (one solo, four assisted) while Megan Parker went over thirty digs for the second consecutive match, picking up a match-high 31 digs.
 
Dominican will take on Illinois College and Webster University on Saturday at the Holiday Inn Express Classic III hosted by Illinois Wesleyan University before returning to River Forest for the Stars' NACC Tournament opener on Tuesday, hosting the sixth-seeded Wisconsin Lutheran College Warriors.