The Dominican University women's volleyball team closed out play at the 2018 Loras Invitational, scoring a 3-1 (25-19, 25-27, 27-25, 25-19) win over the Monmouth College Fighting Scots before falling to the #14 University of Northwestern Eagles 3-0 (25-19, 25-20, 25-20). The Stars finished the tournament 1-3 and now stand at 4-5 on the 2018 season.
"Today was a much better day for us," said Cameron Andrew, the Stars' first-year head coach. "Yesterday I said we needed to find more consistency in our approach to matches and I think we did a great job with that. Getting back in the W column against Monmouth was important and we got contributions from a lot of different players. We put together a really good match against Northwestern, just let a few points get away from us here and there. The effort was there the whole match and we needed to see that against a top 15 program. Nine matches in the last seven days is a ton of volleyball. We are looking forward to getting home and able to get into the groove of the regular season."
In the win over Monmouth, Anastasia Labadessa ran a balanced attack, picking up 60 assists on the Stars' 74 kills. Stephanie Cole led three attackers in double-digit kills, knocking down 16 kills on 32 swings. Amanda Ricca added 11 kills on just 19 attempts while freshman Gabija Sinickaite collected ten kills on 16 swings. Defensively, Megan Parker continued her stellar play in the back row, eclipsing the 20-dig mark for the fourth consecutive match with 22 digs. Lauren LaVigne added 13 while Summer Smith posted 11 digs to go along with her six kills. Labadessa narrowly missed her second career triple-double, collecting ten digs to go along with her 60 assists and nine kills.
In the loss to Northwestern, Olivia Magnussen paced the Dominican attack with eight kills on ten swings. Cole added seven as the Stars' middles hit a combined .333 with just four errors on 33 swings. Parker again paced the defensive effort, collecting 15 digs.
The Stars are now set to open Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference (NACC) play on Wednesday, hosting neighborhood rivals, Concordia University Chicago. First serve is slated for 7:00 p.m. at Dominican's Igini Sports Forum.
