The Dominican University women's volleyball team picked up a pair of wins on Saturday, topping the Rockford University Regents in three sets (25-17, 25-7, 25-15) before rallying for a five-set win over the Saint Mary's College Belles (18-25, 17-25, 25-21, 25-22, 15-8) after dropping the first two sets. With the wins, the Stars improve to 11-6 on the season with three Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference (NACC) matches slated for next week, starting with a trip to Milwaukee on Tuesday to face the MSOE Raiders.
"Going 2-0 is always a good day," said Cameron Andrew, the Stars' first-year head coach. "Getting back on track after the tough loss last night to Edgewood was great. Today we were able to do something we couldn't last night, dig ourselves out of that 0-2 hole and then complete the comeback. We need to do a better job of executing our game plan and bringing our energy from the first point. It's awesome to show we can fight back, but we need to do a better job of not putting ourselves in that position to start."
Anastasia Labadessa (20 assists) and
Madeline Morrow (17 assists) ran a very balanced attack for Dominican in the win over Rockford, with
Summer Smith,
Gabija Sinickaite and
Elin Ream all knocking down seven kills and
Stephanie Cole adding six as the Stars managed a .316 attack percentage.
Gillian Jones and
Olivia Magnussen tallied four kills apiece as the Stars posted 42 kills on 95 attempts with just 12 errors.
Defensively, the Stars needed just 51 digs and four blocks to slow the Regents to a .010 attack percentage. Sinickaite and
Haley Notzen collected two blocks apiece while Jones and Smith led the back row with eight and seven digs respectively.
In the nightcap win over Saint Mary's, the Stars hit .296 over the final two sets after posting a negative attack percentage in the opening frame. Sinickaite continued her stellar rookie season with a team high 14 kills on 35 swings. Smith and Jones added 11 kills apiece as the Stars finished hitting .155 for the match.
